Read this paper and get to know how to clone Windows 10 HDD to smaller SSD using disk cloning software, so that you can upgrade HDD to SSD without reinstallation.
By Bryce / Last Updated October 31, 2019
“I’m intending to upgrade my hard disk drive with Windows 10 installed to solid state drive. As I’m unwilling to reinstall Windows 10 operating system, I decided to migrate it by cloning. The problem is that the capacity of the HDD is 1TB and the newly purchased SSD is 256GB. Is it possible to clone Windows 10 HDD to smaller SSD?”
Due to SSDs’ various merits like faster speed and high price, it is common to choose to upgrade Windows HDD to smaller SSD. And you can avoid the trouble of reinstalling Windows 10 by cloning HDD to smaller SSD. In fact, it is a rather simple task to clone Windows 10 disk to smaller, if the used space on the target disk is not larger than the capacity of the destination SSD and you employ proper disk cloning software.
AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional is just the right one, it offers two ways to copy disk: "Sector-by-Sector Clone" and "Clone Disk Quickly". The latter one only copies used space on the source disk to destination one, allowing you to clone Windows 10 HDD to smaller SSD as long as the used space on the HDD is not larger than the capacity of SSD. As it is specially designed for Windows system, it can not only work with Windows 10, but also with Windows 7/8/8.1, XP and Vista.
To clone Windows 10 HDD to smaller SSD, connect the target SSD to your computer well at first; then, install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant. As aforementioned, the used space of the source disk shall not larger than the capacity of the destination one. If the destination disk is not large enough to hold all the data on the source HDD, you can clone OS drive only to SSD via AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional.
Step 1. In the main interface of AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, click “Disk Clone Wizard” and choose "Clone Disk Quickly". Then, click “Next” button.
Step 2. Choose the Windows 10 HDD as the source disk and click “Next”.
Step 3. Choose the smaller SSD as the destination disk. Then, hit “Next”.
Step 4. Here you can adjust the partition size on the destination SSD. As the SSD is smaller than HDD, the first option is greyed out.
A Note about how to boot from cloned disk (here is disk 2) will prompt. Read and remember it.
Step 5. Go back to the main interface. Check the operation and click “Apply” to execute it.
After managing to clone Windows 10 HDD to smaller SSD, if you want to keep old HDD and boot from SSD, you need to enter BIOS to change boot priority to SSD. If you clone GPT disk to smaller MBR SSD or MBR disk to GPT SSD, you also need to change boot mode between Legacy and UEFI.
Under the help of AOMEI Partition Assistant, you can clone Windows 10 hard drive to smaller SSD easily and safely. In fact, it is more than disk cloning software for Windows 10/8.1/8/7, XP and Vista. It enjoys many other functions like converting dynamic disk into basic without data loss, resizing system partition, creating Windows bootable USB drive, etc.
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