Easiest Way to Clone NTFS Drive in Windows (Freeware)

🌟 Video Guide: How to Clone NTFS Drive

Need to clone NTFS drive

Windows PC started using the NTFS file system by default for its internal drives from Windows XP. Compared to FAT32, NTFS is more secure and robust, and it supports larger file sizes and drives. You may need to clone NTFS drive in the following situations:

• Enlarge storage space: the NTFS drive is running out of space and you want to clone it to a larger drive.

• Backup important data: you saved crucial data on the NTFS drive and you want to clone the data to an external drive as a backup.

• Replace a failing drive: If the disk containing the NTFS partition has damaged areas, you have the option to clone the crucial partition onto a fresh disk.

As there is no Windows built-in tool that owns the clone feature, you’ll need a professional cloning utility to help you clone a hard drive in NTFS file system. Find such a tool in the next part.

Best freeware to run NTFS clone in Windows

AOMEI Backupper Standard, the best free disk clone software, can be your ideal choice. Following are its main features:

Just download AOMEI Backupper and follow the instructions below to copy NTFS partition without efforts.

How to clone NTFS partition step by step

Bear in mind that the destination partition will be overwritten during the cloning process, so backup files on the destination partition before cloning. Then, follow the steps thereinafter to clone an internal NTFS drive to another drive:

Step 1. Install and run AOMEI Backupper. Click “Clone” and select “Partition Clone”.

Step 2. Select the NTFS partition you want to clone and click “Next”.

Step 3. Select another partition to store the cloned data and click “Next”.

Step 4. Confirm the operation and click “Start Clone”.

>> Edit partition: you can choose the partition type (primary partition or logical partition) and drive letter for the destination partition. You can also adjust the partition size. This feature is available in the Professional edition or higher.
>> SSD Alignment: use this option to improve the reading and writing speed of the destination partition while cloning hard drive to an SSD.
>> Sector by sector clone: it will clone every sector on the source partition whether it is used or not. It requires the destination partition to be equal to or larger than the source partition.

✐ Notes:

• If the NTFS partition you choose to clone is the only partition on the disk, you can use Disk Clone to clone NTFS drive to another drive.
• If you are cloning a boot partition in NTFS format, you’d better upgrade to higher editions and use the System Clone feature. This advanced feature will automatically choose all system related partitions that need to be cloned as so to ensure a secure boot.

Wrapping things up

You can accomplish cloning NTFS drive in Windows within a few steps if you pick AOMEI Backupper. Apart from the clone feature, AOMEI Backupper is specialized backup and sync software. You can use it to backup Windows or sync QNAP NAS to OneDrive, etc.

If you want to protect unlimited computers within your company, you can pick AOMEI Backupper Technician. With the inbuilt AOMEI Image Deploy tool, you are allowed to deploy/restore system image file on server-side computer to multiple client-side computers over network. Try it now to discover more!