Clone External Hard Drive to Another External Hard Drive Easily

Need to clone an external hard drive to another external hard drive in Windows 11, 10, 8, or 7, so you don't have to worry about data loss. Read this article and learn the stepwise guide.

Ivy

By Ivy Updated on August 28, 2023

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Why clone an external hard drive to another external hard drive?

As a matter of fact, many users clone an external hard drive to another for backup copies, which adds an extra layer of files on the external hard drive. If your external disk is damaged or lost, you still have a duplicate copy. It's similar to backup external hard drive to another external hard drive, but they are not exactly the same.

  Backup external hard drive to another  clone external hard drive to another
Operations backup to a temporary storage and then restore to another external disk. directly copy external hard drive to another external hard drive
Form compressed image file uncompression source file
Requirements a  temporary storage no extra device
Data accessible no, only access or modify your data after restoring the image file yes, you can directly access or modify your data
Cots time  double single

Also, some users use it to transfer a large amount of data quickly, or clone a bootable hard drive and make it bootable. You can then use the bootable disk to start your computer and troubleshoot it in the event of system failure or other serious scenarios. 

Easiest method to clone external hard drive to another 

As mentioned many times in my other articles, cloning an external hard drive to another is the easiest way to migrate everything from one hard drive to another. And you don't need to worry about data loss and reinstall Windows & programs.

However, none of the current versions of Windows have this cloning feature. We highly recommend you powerful disk clone software AOMEI Backupper Standard to clone external hard drive to another external hard drive in Windows 11, 10, 8.1, 8, 7, XP, and Vista.

AOMEI Backupper
Easy Hard Drive and SSD Cloning Software
  • Have a clear graphic user interface and easy to operate. 
  • Clone data disk from MBR to MBR with its Disk Clone feature. 
  • Clone large HDD to smaller SSD with its Intelligent Clone feature.
  • Optimize SSD disk performance, such as reading & writing speed.
  • Support a wide range of disk brands, such as SanDisk, WD, Samsung, Toshiba, Transcend, etc.
  • Advanced features, such as clone MBR disk to GPT, Edit Partitions, migrate operating system to SSD, etc.

Stepwise guide: clone one external hard drive to another in Windows 10 or 11

By default, AOMEI Backupper Standard clones only used sectors from one hard drive to another. So it will be ok if the another external hard drive is smaller.

Before cloning external hard drive in Windows 10 or11, get the following things prepared:

  • Install these two external hard drives to your PC and make sure they can be detected by Windows. Prepare two connectors, such as USB-to-SATA cable or adapter, if necessary. 
  • Remember clearly which disk is the source external drive, because all data on the destination external drive will be overwritten during the cloning process.

Then, learn how to clone an external hard drive using the following steps:

1. Install and launch AOMEI Backupper Standard. Then, on the main page of this software, click Clone > Disk Clone.

Disk Clone

2. In the Source Disk window, select the external hard drive you want to clone.

Source Disk

3. In the Destination Disk window, select another external hard drive to receive all the data on the source disk.

Destination Disk

4. Tick Sector by sector clone if you want to clone all sectors of the original disk. It requires the target disk to be equal to or larger than the source disk.  Optionally, click SSD Alignment to accelerate the writing and reading speed of SSD disk (if it is). Then, confirm everything is ok and click Start Clone to copy external hard drive to another external hard drive.

Start Clone

🌟Tip:

The Edit Partitions feature allows you to extend partition to unallocated space by Add unsed space to all partitions or Manually adjust partition size. Note both options are supported by the professional version. You can also use it to convert MBR to GPT or vice versa.

FAQs on how to clone an external hard drive

The following questions are highly relevant to how to clone an external hard drive. Check the answer if you have similar questions.

Q 1. How to backup external hard drive to another external hard drive in Windows 10?
 
If you just make an exact copy of your current external hard drive, cloning it with free disk clone software - AOMEI Backupper Standard will be the best method. But if you want to track its changes, try its Disk Backup feature and set the backup task to run automatically. Here are some simple steps:
1. Open AOMEI Backupper Standard. Click Disk Bacup under the Backup tab.
2. Select the source and destination external hard drive subsequently. Remember to click Next.
3. Click Schedule Backup and enable Daily, Weekly, Monthly, etc. schedule settings. Finally, click Start Backup.
Q 2. How do I clone a hard drive to another hard drive?
 
Similar to cloning external hard drive to another external hard drive in Windows, open AOMEI Backupper Standard and select Disk Clone. Then, select both of your drives and click Next. Finally, click Start Clone.
Q3. Can I clone large HDD to smaller SSD?
 
Yes, AOMEI Backupper uses the Intelligent Clone feature by default, which clones only used sectors of a drive. So if your SSD can hold data on the large HDD, you can clone large HDD to smaller SSD. If it's a system disk, the smaller SSD will remain bootable.

Verdict

Cloning external hard drive to another external hard drive is the easiest way to make a duplicate copy of your important files on the disk, and you can view, modify, or delete files in the target disk at any time without restoring the image file. Free disk clone software - AOMEI Backupper can be great helper.

Also, you still can use it to clone system disk, such as clone GPT disk to MBR, and make it bootable. Note it's available on the professional version of AOMEI Backupper. In addition, you can also use it to clone OS only instead of entire disk. For server users, you could consider using AOMEI Backupper Server.

Ivy
Ivy · Editor
Ivy is an editor of AOMEI Technology, she covers backup & restore,hard disk & partitions management and cloud files transfer and so on for AOMEI. She is an outgoing girl and enjoys helping people find solutions to their problems. She loves traveling, eating, reading and so on. She usually hangs out with friends at her leisure time.