Easiest Way to Clone Hard Drive or SSD to External Hard Drive

Why clone hard drive to external hard drive?

Cloning hard drives (HDD or SSD) is becoming more and more common for millions of Windows computer users globally. Many users are choosing to clone internal hard drive to external hard drive for a variety of different reasons and here are three main reasons behind it:

• Duplicate a copy for data security. Cloning a hard drive is to create an exact copy of your HDD or SSD and you can use it as a backup copy and access your data without restoring the image file first. And it does not require you to prepare a storage to store your data temporarily.

• Clone HDD or SSD to upgrade disk. Cloning HDD or SSD migrates everything including the operating system, system files, drivers, installed programs, personal data, etc. to external disk and you can use it as a system disk for larger capacity or better performance without reinstalling them.

• Replace the bad disk. If your internal disk has bad sectors or imminent failure, it's suggested to clone hard drive or SSD to external hard drive and switch disks to ensure the computer is always bootable.  

Best cloning software for hard drive migration

Windows doesn’t include a built-in cloning feature in its range of backup tools, therefore, we must turn to third-party cloning software. AOMEI Backupper Professional is a specialist disk cloning program that allows users to clone hard drives in Windows 10/8/7/XP/Vista and the latest system Windows 11 to external ones (such as HDDs, SSDs, and USB flash drives) in a few simple clicks. 

✧ AOMEI Backupper enables users to clone smaller hard drive to larger drive to get more free space. Or clone larger HDD to smaller SSD with the Intelligent Clone feature to enjoy the high performance of SSD disk.
✧It offers the Sector by Sector Clone function to help you make an exact copy of the source disk. Even blank or logically bad sectors will be cloned.
✧It provides you with the "SSD Alignment" option to optimize your SSD performance during the cloning process, especially useful when you clone your HDD to an external SSD drive.
✧Its "Edit Partitions" feature is able to adjust unallocated space manually or automatically and convert the destination disk from MBR to GPT or vice versa.

AOMEI Backupper is free to download, and importantly it doesn’t include ads. Why not download it to have a try right now?

Step by step guide: clone HDD or SSD to external drive in Windows 10 or 11

In this part, I will show you how to clone HDD or SSD to external drive as an example to teach you how to use this cloning software. Before cloning, get the following prepared:

1️⃣ External drive like a larger or smaller HDD, SSD, USB external disk, etc. Be sure its capacity is enough to save data on your original HDD or SSD, or the cloning process will fail. 

2️⃣ USB to SATA adapter to connect external hard drive (if your computer only has one slot). If your computer has two slots, directly slide your external disk into the slot and screw it tightly. 

3️⃣ Initialize the external drive in Disk Management. Right-click it and select Initialize Disk. Then, select MBR or GPT and click OK. Note the partition style needs to be the same as your original disk.

Here are simple steps to check the disk partition style:

• Press Win + R to open the Run window. Then, type diskmgmt.msc and hit OK to open disk management.
• Then, right-click the disk you want to clone and select Properties in the pop-up window.
• In the Properties window, select the Volume tab and confirm the partition style. It can be MBR (Master Boot Record) or GPT (GUID Partition Table).

4️⃣ Backup files on external hard drive if there are any important data. The cloning will overwrite data and files on the target external drive.

Then, follow the steps below to clone HDD or SSD to external drive.

Step 1. Launch hard drive cloning software AOMEI Backupper, then you will see its deep-blue screen. Click Clone and then select Disk Clone in order.

Step 2. Select the original HDD or SSD on your computer as the source disk. Then, click Next.

Step 3. Select the prepared external drive as the destination disk (the destination disk can also be an SSD, USB external disk, a flash drive, etc.). Then, click Next.

Step 4. Check the operation summary and click Start Clone to clone hard drive to external hard drive in Windows 10 or 11.

If your external hard drive is a large HDD or SSD, click "Edit Partitions" and choose "Add unused space to all partitions" or "Manually adjust partition size"  to resize the partitions on the destination disk. Otherwise, you will find the cloned drive shows wrong size in Windows Explorer. 

In addition, it still supports converting disk types (MBR or GPT) to prevent boot failure. Remember to check the SSD Alignment box to improve your SSD’s performance if it is an SSD disk.

Step 5. Wait until the process reaches 100% and click Finish. Then, replace your old hard drive and boot computer from the cloned external drive to make sure it's bootable. If you keep both disks connected, please change the boot sequence in the BIOS to make the external drive the first boot option.

Please be aware that the length of time the cloning process takes varies from drive to drive. If you have a large drive with lots of data, the process may take a relatively longer time. 

Conclusion

No matter whether you want a backup copy or need to upgrade or replace the disk, you can easily clone hard drive or SSD to external drive with the powerful cloning software - AOMEI Backupper Professional. In addition, this software even allows you to move hard drive to new computer in Windows 11 and boot successfully.  

And it is crammed full of useful features and functions for managing your system. It enables you to backup your system to an external hard drive or NAS device, backup important files to cloud storage, and more! Why wait? Try it now!