how to clone a disk

[hoofhearted4]

I have a 500gb HDD that i need to clone to a 256GB SSD. The HDD only has about 100GB of stuff on there, which is why the SSD is smaller. All the tutorials ive seen mention going from smaller to bigger. I remember i tried this several years back (going from a bigger HDD to a smaller SSD, even though data amount left plenty of room) and it messed up.

 

What software do you all recommend? i used Clonezilla previously, but really wanted to make sure it can do what I'm looking to do. Not worried if the recommended software is free or paid. I'll pay for a nice easy software haha. again the fact that the HDD is bigger than the SSD leaves me worried. just want to double check what to do

 

Thanks All!

[FMod]

The easiest-to-use software that does what you want is probably AOMEI. It includes a wizard to specifically move Windows to SSD, "lock stock and barrel", that is boot sector and system partitions included.

 

You may need to defrag the drive before cloning.

[hoofhearted4]

I found Ease US and I am pretty sure that will do what I want. the HDD is 500gb and the SSD is 480gb (I wasnt sure when i was asking). i tested EaseUS real quick and found it simple enough. they have a tutorial on how to do what I want so I should be set now!

[bnseen992]

Swap the old drive out for a freshly made clone and there should be no functional difference. You can also use the cloned drive in another PC, and aside from some potential missing drivers due to hardware differences, it should work just like your old system, making it an ideal backup in the event of a damaged PC.

[Ratioek]

Ohh, I'll do it.