The Best Way to Clone Windows 10 to Smaller SSD

Why should you clone Windows 10 to smaller SSD?

You may find that your computer which contains a hard disk drive become slower and slower after a long time usage. You need to spend much time on opening a software or even a file. So, how to get a better performance for your computer?

For professional users, reinstallation is an option. However, if you are not good at computers, reinstallation might be a difficulty for you. Thus, transfer Windows 10 to smaller SSD can be a good choice. Why should you do this? Three main reasons are responsible for this action.

• For a better preformance. As everyone knows, the solid state disk has many merits, which HDD doesn’t have. Such as faster speed, lighter volume, lower consumption and so on. Thus, clone Windows 10 to a smaller SSD can be an excellent way to improve the working preformance of your computer.

• For a good budget. SSD is more expensive than HDD in market. Thus, a smaller SSD is more affordable than a larger one.

• For a replacement: Any storage device has a lifespan, so hard drives that start to fail must be replaced. By cloning the content to a new disk, you can keep everything stored on the original disk.

• For a system backup. You can keep the old hard drive as a system backup drive, as the cloning process will not wipe out the original HDD.

How to move Windows 10 to smaller SSD?

A good system cloning software is the first step for the clone process. By comparison with other software, AOMEI Backupper Professional can complete this task efficiently with its simple interface and easy operation steps. This software is totally safe. When you install it, your computers will not bundled with other programs. Except for system clone, disk clone and partition clone are also available.

By default, this utility performs an Intelligent Clone, which allows you to copy only used part to the target drive as long as the used part fits the drive. That's why you can clone your system to a smaller SSD. By using it, the reading and writting speed of your SSD can also be accelerated.

What's more, this powerful software allows you to clone your system drive from MBR partition style to MBR or GPT partition style, from GPT partition style to GPT or MBR partition style. This program works for Windows11, Windows 10, Windows 8.1/8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP(all editions, 32/64-bit).

Detailed steps of migrating OS to smaller SSD in Windows 10

✍ Tips:
◉ Considering that the storage space of your SSD may be small, you'd better clean out unnecessary files/folders to free up storage space before cloning. Also, the time required for cloning will also be shorter.
◉ After cloning, the target drive will be overwritten. If you have some important files on it, you'd better backup files to external hard drive.

1. Download and install this software to open it. You can click the “Clone” from the left column. After do that, choose the “System Clone” option.

2. The required system partitions are selected by default. Select your smaller SSD as a new location for Windows 10 and then click "Next" (take the Disk 2 for example).

3. You must confirm the destination disk whether it is right or not. You also can optimize the SSD by choosing the “SSD Alignment” option. Then you can click "Start Clone" to move Windows 10 to smaller SSD.

4. After cloning you can set your smaller SSD as the first boot device in BIOS.

Tips:

• Ensure that the space of the smaller SSD is equal to or larger than the used space of the system. If the space of the SSD is smaller than the needed space, you must change to another one. You can't use the source disk as a destination disk.

• Sector by sector clone will clone all sectors. Thus, it takes a longer time for cloning. Confirm that the destination disk is equal to or larger than the source disk.

• As for the old hard drive, you can keep it as a backup in case of a system crash. Or you can reformat the hard drive to use it as your secondary storage.

Conclusion

With AOMEI Backupper Professional, you are allowed to clone Windows 10 to smaller SSD with such easy and simple steps. After cloning, your system will run smoothly so that you don’t need to wait for a long time for system response. By the way, this utility also provides other practical functions: clone Windows 7 to new hard drive and migrate C drive to SSD in Windows 10. If you are a Windows Server user, you can turn to AOMEI Backupper Server.