How to Migrate Windows 10 to Smaller SSD without Reinstalling

Can I move Windows 10 to a smaller SSD?

Nowadays, it's common to replace HDD with SSD, which offer much faster writing & reading speeds and are affordable. In addition, you don't need to reinstall the operating system, or programs, or set up your settings from scratch, which is a tedious and time-consuming task. 

However, when cloning hard drive to SSD, you may encounter difficulties if the drive is smaller. Luckily, you can choose to migrate only OS in Windows 10 to smaller SSD, such as clone 1TB HDD to 256GB SSD, with a powerful cloning software.

What is the best software to migrate OS?

AOMEI Backupper Professional is one of the best software to migrate OS to smaller SSD in Windows 10, 11, or earlier by cloning it. Meanwhile, the cloned SSD is bootable.

It has a perfect cloning function as shown below.

👍 3 Cloning Solutions	It supports "Disk Clone", "System Clone", and "Partition Clone". The previous two are able to migrate OS to smaller SSD. To clone OS only, use the "System Clone" feature. To clone entire hard drive to smaller SSD, use "Disk Clone" feature.
🙌 2 Cloning Methods	By default, it uses the "Intelligent Clone" feature to clone only used sectors of a hard drive, making it easy to migrate Windows 10 to smaller SSD. You can also use "Sector by Sector Clone" to clone all sectors.
🚀 4K Alignment Technology	Its "SSD Alignment" feature allows you to improve the performance of SSD disk, such as reading & writing speed.
🍀 User-friendly GUI	The delicately designed interface and wizard make it an easy-to-use software.

How to migrate OS to smaller SSD without reinstalling 

It is a good habit to backup data before any disk operation. If you haven't made a backup yet, you can backup data to external hard drive using Disk Backup in AOMEI Backupper. Please download and install it on your computer.

 (PS: The clone feature can only be demonstrated in the free trial version. You need to upgrade if you want to migrate Windows 10 to smaller SSD with a cloning solution. Get a 20% discount now!)

Step 1. Select a cloning method. 

Plug your SSD into your computer using the USB-to-SATA cable. Then launch AOMEI Backupper, click the System Clone under the Clone option.

Step 2. Select your smaller SSD. 

The program will automatically select the system partition and boot-related partition(e.g. system reserved or EFI partition). Just select your SSD as a new location for Windows 10 and click Next (take Disk 2 for example).

Step 3. Set and clone Windows 10 to smaller SSD. 

You will see an Operation Summary which shows the operation that will be executed. Tick SSD Alignment box to improve the reading and writing speed as well as extend SSD’s lifespan. Then, click Start Clone to migrate Windows 10 to smaller SSD.

Click Finish when the cloning process is done. Then, enter into BIOS and set SSD as the first boot disk, boot from it. 

The original drive will not be wiped out and you can use the original drive as secondary storage. Or you can also choose to backup SSD to HDD in case of a system crash.

Conclusion

With the help of professional disk cloning software - AOMEI Backupper, you can easily migrate Windows 10 to smaller SSD without reinstalling by cloning OS only or the entire disk.

Whichever cloning solution you use, it clones only used sectors of a hard drive by default. Therefore you just need to ensure the used space of the original disk is smaller than or equal to target disk.

Meanwhile, AOMEI Backupper is also a comprehensive backup tool. It offers various backup options including system/disk/partition/file backup that can meet almost all your needs in computer backup. Just explore it by yourself now!