In this article, you will learn how to migrate Windows 10 to new hard drive for free. Then you can directly migrate Windows operating system from one disk to another disk rather than performing a clean installation.
By
AOMEI
/ Last Updated March 5, 2021
If you are struggling to open large files on your system or run various applications at the same time, and the Windows 10 operating system reads too slowly, it is a great choice to upgrade your computer from old hard drive to a new hard drive. This can be the most effective way to speed up your Windows 10 computer.
However, changing a new disk without OS installed on will cost you lots of time and efforts to reinstall everything from scratch, so you might wish to directly migrate Windows 10 from old hard drive to the new one. Then, you don’t need to install the system after the migration, and you can start your computer directly from the new disk too.
After deciding to transfer Windows 10 to new hard drive, now it is time to make a choice between SSD and HDD. Which of the two is the better choice? There’s no straight-forward answer to this question. Each buyer has different needs and you have to evaluate the decision based on your own requirements, budget, and preferences. Here we would like to introduce the difference between SSD and HDD to help with your decision.
SSD-Solid State Drive: A kind of hard disk which is made by solid state electronic storage chip and consists of control unit (flash chip) and stipulation of interface, in function and usage and in appearance and size.
HDD-Hard Disk Drive: It is the most basic computer storage, made up of magnetic tape with mechanical parts in side. They are larger and prone to damage.
Attribute | SSD(Solid State Drive) | HDD(Hard Disk Drive) |
Power Draw/Battery Life | Less power draw, averages 2 – 3 watts, resulting in 30+ minute battery boost | More power draw, averages 6 – 7 watts and therefore uses more battery |
Cost | Expensive, roughly $0.50 per gigabyte (based on buying a 1TB drive) | Only around $0.15 per gigabyte, very cheap (buying a 4TB model) |
Capacity | Typically not larger than 512GB for notebook size drives; 1TB max for desktops | Typically around 500GB and 2TB maximum for notebook size drives; 4TB max for desktops |
Operating System Boot Time | Around 22 seconds average bootup time | Around 40 seconds average bootup time |
Noise | There are no moving parts and as such no sound | Audible clicks and spinning can be heard |
vibration | No vibration as there are no moving parts | The spinning of the platters can sometimes result in vibration |
Heat Produced | Lower power draw and no moving parts so little heat is produced | HDD doesn’t produce much heat, but it will have a measurable amount more heat than an SSD due to moving parts and higher power draw |
File Copy / Write Speed | Generally above 200 MB/s and up to 550 MB/s for cutting edge drives | The range can be anywhere from 50 – 120MB / s |
File Opening Speed | Up to 30% faster than HDD | Slower than SSD |
Magnetism Affected? | An SSD is safe from any effects of magnetism | Magnets can erase data |
Scope of application | Applicable to indoor, no change in temperature, no shock and vibration equipment. It is widely used in military, IT industry,aviation and many other fields. | Applicable to outdoor, low temperature, high temperature, shipborne, automotive, airborne products, firewalls, robots, portable devices, military, etc. It is suitable for home use. |
Now, you should have a better understanding of those two disks. Whatever hard drive you choose to contain the Windows 10 from the old hard drive, you will also need a professional OS migration tool.
Here, we bring the freeware-AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. It comes with “Migrate OS to SSD Wizard”, which allows you to move Windows 10, Windows 8 and Windows 7 partition to new hard drive (SSD or HDD) and boot from the new hard drive successfully after migration. Besides, it is also able to clone entire Windows 10/8/7 system disk to another hard drive via the “Disk Clone Wizard”.
Please note that the freeware only supports migrating OS from MBR disk to another MBR disk. If you want to migrate Windows 10 from GTP disk to MBR disk, or MBR to GPT, GPT to GPT disk, you can upgrade to AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. Besides, you have to ensure your motherboard supports UEFI/EFI boot mode since you have to upgrade Legacy to UEFI after migrating OS from MBR to GPT. Below is how to migrate Windows 10 to new hard drive for free step by step.
Step 1. Download, install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant. Your partition information will be displayed on the main interface. Then, click ”Migrate OS to SSD” on the left side under the Wizards column. In the pop-up window, click ”Next” to continue.
Step 2. In the next window, select a partition or an unallocated space on the destination disk (SSD or HDD), and then click “Next”.
Tip: if you're planning to migrate Windows 10 to a hard drive with partitions on, the progress will delete all partitions in the disk.
Step 3. In this window, you could modify the information (including size, location, and drive letter) of the partition on new disk, of course, you can keep default settings.
Step 4. After setting up all the information, click “Next” to read the note about “Boot Operating System”. And then click “Finish” back to the main interface where you can preview changes.
Step 5. To save the changes, click “Apply” button to commit the “Pending Operations”.
Follow these simple steps and you can migrate Windows 10 to new hard drive free and easily. Then you can restart your PC, enter BIOS, change the boot order to make the new disk as the first boot device to check if you are able to boot computer from the new hard drive smoothly.
This is how to migrate Windows 10 to new hard drive for free. Besides the OS migration function, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard also enables PC users to clone partition, convert MBR and GPT without deleting partitions, merge partition, move partition, convert FAT32 and NTFS without formatting and more. For Windows Server users, the AOMEI Partition Assistant Server is a nice choice.
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