[Free] Best USB Cloning Software without Losing Data

Scenario

When would you need USB cloning software?

USB drive is more and more widely used in our daily life. You can use USB flash drive to do a lot of things, such as run portable version of programs and games, try open-source operating system, create Windows recovery disk, create Windows installation media, data storage, etc.

Many users have one or more USB drives for a certain purpose due to its convenience and affordable price, and they would more likely to clone one USB stick to another in these situations:

✦ Clone for backup: USB drives are very small and inclined to go missing. Besides, USB flash drives are vulnerable to virus infection and human error due to lots of plug-ins and plug-outs.
✦ Replace corrupted USB drive: Flash drives go bad eventually, since they can only be used a finite number of times. If you encounter one of USB flash drive failure symptoms (eject or mount failure, connection component failure, electronic component failure, NAND memory failure, etc.), it is strongly recommended to copy it to a new drive.
✦ Upgrade small bootable flash drive: Some USB are used as bootable devices to run Windows. Many users would like to clone bootable USB drive to another USB for data safety or capacity upgrading.

You may have other reasons to apply a USB duplicating tool, but what counts next is to find out the best tool.

The best free USB clone tool for Windows 11/10/8/7

To copy flash drive entirely, it is suggested to try a third-party cloning tool, since Windows misses the “clone” feature. Well, which tool is the most suitable one?

AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard (Windows 11/10/8/7/XP/Vista supported) is a reliable USB clone software for free that designs for Windows operating systems only. It allows you to clone USB flash drive entirely to another USB drive or other devices such as external hard drive, portable drive, memory card, etc.

Besides, it allows you to create a bootable USB drive to boot Windows from WinPE if the need ever arises. Also, the partition management on USB drive, like change USB partition file system to FAT32 or NTFS, format read only USB, etc. are also available.

The software has a friendly user interface that is suitable for both IT experts and computer beginners. It is 100% clean and has no bundled software. You may want to free download to have a try.

How to clone USB flash drive for free step by step

Here I’ll show you how to clone USB drive to another USB drive. What you need to prepare is the USB drive you want to clone and the other destination USB drive. The specific steps are as follows:

Tip: First of all, please connect two USB drives to your computer, and make sure they can be detected.

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional Edition.

Step 2. Click the "Clone" main tab and select "Clone Disk". (You can also right-click the Disk you want to clone and select the "Clone Disk" tool to run disk clone.)

Step 3. Choose the hard disk that you need to clone as the source disk and click "Next".

Step 4. Select the destination disk to put the data of the source disk on, and then click "Next".

Step 5. Then, you will enter the Confirm interface where you can check the source and destination disk. After all is set, you can click the "Confirm" button to continue.

In lower left corner of the window, you can click the "Settings" button to adjust the partition size on the destination disk. There are three options for you:

• Clone without resizing partitions: all partitions will be cloned to the target disk as the original partition size. It is available when the target disk is larger than the source disk. If it is smaller, this option will be grayed out.
• Fit partitions to entire disk: all partitions will be cloned to the target disk and take up its full capacity according to the original partition size proportion.
• Edit partitions on this disk: you can change every partition size on the target disk as you need.

After finishing the adjustment, please click "Save".

Notes:

• You can tick "4k alignment" to improve the reading and writing speed of SSD if the selected destination disk is an SSD storage.
• All data on this selected destination disk will be wiped out after you save the operation to physical disk. If there is important data on the destination drive, please make a backup in advance.
• If you clone to a smaller SSD, the first option is grayed out. If you select Sector-by-Sector Clone, it is unable to adjust the size on the destination disk.

Step 6. You can preview the disk cloning operating by viewing the "Pending Operations". To commit the "Pending Operations", please click "Apply" and "Proceed".

Step 7. The cloning process will start and you can check the cloning process.

★Tips:

If you want to copy only one partition on the selected drive, you could refer to Partition Clone function.

AOMEI Partition Assistant provides a way to restore lost partition on USB drive after upgrading to Professional Edition.

If you plan to clone OS drive, go to Pro Edition.

Conclusion

USB flash drive cloning can be easily completed with the help of free USB cloning software - AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. As a matter of fact, you could keep the software installed after copying to better manage your hard drive and partitions like partitioning USB drive, extending system partition, moving partition, changing drive letter, or hiding partition, etc.

Further, if you’re an administrator of a company, it is suggested to try AOMEI Partition Assistant Unlimited license to install the software on unlimited PCs or Servers within the company.