U.2 Samsung SSD | What It Is & How to Clone

In the past, M.2 SSD was known as the fastest SSD on the market. But now there is a new U.2 SSD and many users are wandering if it’s faster than M.2 SSD, even M.2 NVMe SSD. And what are the difference between them? How to clone the new U.2 SSD, such as, Samsung 983 DCT? This article will reveal the answer for you.

Then, let's have a glance about this article.

• What Is U.2 SSD?

• U.2 SSD vs M.2 SSD: What Are the Differences?

• U.2 Samsung SSD Cloning Software

• How to clone Samsung U.2 SSD in Simple Steps

• Wrapping Things up

What Is U.2 SSD?

U.2, formerly known as SFF-8639, is a new form factor of SSDs including physical connector, electrical characteristics, and communication protocols. It has four PCIe lanes and two SATA lanes. And it was developed as enterprise SSD and can be used with PCIe drives, NVMe drives, SAS drives and SATA drives.

U.2 SSD vs M.2 SSD: What Are the Differences?

In the first place, you need to know both NVME M.2 and U.2 use 4 PCIe lanes giving 4GB/s bus to communicate to the motherboard of your PC. The read speed of both SSDs are very close, U.2 have around 2500MB/s while NVMe M.2 have a read speed range from 3000 to 3500MB/s. Among them, Intel Optane 905P and Intel 750 Series are known as the best U.2 SSD, and Samsung 970 Pro is famous as the best NVMe SSD. 

Then, let’s continue.

• Motherboard connection: M.2 SSDs are directly installed on the motherboard while U.2 SSDs are placed in the drive bay like most SATA SSD but the cable is double-layered.

• Form factor: M.2 is a small, flat board while U.2 is the 2.5” form factor similar to most SATA SSD.

• Capacity: U.2 SSDs have larger capacity, even up to 4TB+, thanks to its larger form factors but M.2 SSDs are limited to 2TB.

U.2 Samsung SSD Cloning Software

Presumably you now have a general understanding of U.2 and the difference between U.2 and M.2, then you can choose which type SSD you want to use. In a simple word, U.2 SSD can balance performance and capacity well.

Among U.2 SSD, Samsung 983 DCT, known as Samsung enterprise SSD, is a great choice for disk upgrade. Because it has high performance, large capacity and reasonable price, lower than the best U.2 SSD under the same capacity, namely Intel Optane 905P and Intel 750 Series.

SSD cloning software is an indispensable tool for users to replace old or damaged hard drive with an SSD disk. I strongly recommend you AOMEI Backupper Professional because of the following outstanding features.

• Clone hard drive to SSD effortlessly, whether it's larger or smaller than the source drive, and ensure secure boot.

• Support all branded SSDs disk including Samsung/Intel/WD/Acer/Dell etc, whether U.2, M.2, NVME, SATA or PCIe.

• Compatible with all Windows-based operating systems, including Windows 7/8/8.1/10/11/XP/Vista (All editions, 32-bit&64-bit).

• Improve the performance of SSDs and extend its lifespan using 4k alignment technology.

How to clone Samsung U.2 SSD in Simple Steps

Then, I’ll show you how to clone hard drive to Samsung U.2 SSD easily and quickly. But before you start to clone, please check the following things.

• Check if your computer has an U.2 connector.

• Prepare an U.2 connector cable, adapter or enclosure.

• Put a diet on hard drive if needed. You can uninstall the useless programs, delete temporary or non-system files with “Disk cleanup”, etc.

• Free download SSD cloning software for U.2 Samsung SSD.

Now, taking the Samsung enterprise SSD Samsung 983 DCT as an example, the entire cloning process should be as follows. 

Step 1. Connect Samsung 983 DCT to your computer via U.2 adapter or enclose, and make sure it can be detected. Open U.2 SSD cloning software, then click “Clone” and “Disk Clone” in order.

Step 2. Choose the current running disk as source drive and click “Next”.

Step 3. Select Samsung U.2 SSD as destination disk and click “Next” to move on.

Step 4. Tick “SSD Alignment” to accelerate the reading and writing speed of the Samsung U.2 SSD. Confirm everything is OK and click “Start Clone”.

Tips:
◓ To make full use of U.2 SSD disk space, you can use “Edit Partitions” in AOMEI Backupper Professional, having three options, including “Copy without resizing partitions”, “Add unused space to all partitions”, “Manually adjust partition size”.
◓ To clone all sectors of the currently running disk, you need to check “Sector by sector clone” option at the bottom.
◓ To start a computer unbootable, please create a bootable media at first.
◓ To clone only system on your computer, you could use "System Clone (supported by AOMEI Backupper Professional)" feature.

Notes:
◓ Don’t boot your computer with SSD externally, because it may not work well. Please swap hard drive of your computer with a screwdriver and install the U.2 Samsung SSD inside.
◓ Change boot order before booting from the cloned U.2 SSD. Restart your computer and press the specific key at the initial screen, ie, F2 or ESC, go to Boot tab and set the cloned SSD as the first boot options, finally save changes and reboot.
◓ Change boot mode if the partition style is different, from Legacy BIOS to UEFI or UEFI to BIOS.
◓ Don’t format HDD before you can boot your computer from the cloned SSD. Then, format HDD and use it as storage if it’s still working.

Wrapping Things up

That’s all for U.2 SSD and how to clone U.2 Samsung SSD effortlessly. Although U.2 SSDs are not the fastest SSDs, but it’s a compromise between performance and capacity. Therefore, it’s still worth getting one U.2 SSD like Samsung 983 DCT.

Reliable disk cloning software, AOMEI Backupper Professional, can be a great choice for you to clone HDD to U.2 Samsung SSD or other branded U.2 SSD, such as, Intel Optane 905P. Also, it allows you to clone NVMe to NVMe, clone SATA to SATA, clone M.2 to M.2, clone PCIe SSD, clone Windows 10 to NVMe SSD, etc. Why not give it a try now?