Freeware: How to Clone an SSD to a Larger SSD in Windows 11

Scenario: Need to clone an SSD to a larger SSD in Windows 11

“I bought a 1TB SSD for my Windows 11 to replace my 256GB SSD which is just about full. I'd like to just transfer everything over, including the OS, to the new SSD. Does any tool recommend?”

--From tomshardware

Clone SSD to larger SSD for quick disk upgrade in Windows 11/10/7/8

Nowadays, when people talk about disk upgrades, the prevailing topic has already changed from replacing HDD with an SSD to replacing a small SSD with a larger one. SSD has become the top choice for consumers seeking disks with higher disk performance, and as a result, an increasing number of people would want to pick a large-capacity SSD.

The next heat point for disk upgrade is: when you have a larger SSD, which would be better—clone the original SSD to a larger one, or do a fresh installation?

Honestly, there’s no better one. It all depends on your requirements:
▶ Clone entire system disk:
Clone is to create a total duplicate disk from the source disk, OS, all files, and installed programs…everything is just like the original.
▶ Clean installation:
You will need to reinstall everything like OS, programs… And your files and personalized settings will disappear. You’ll need to spend time downloading and rebuilding all on that new disk. Thus, if you happen to have the idea of building a new PC environment, this is a nice choice.

Therefore, if you just pursue a quick disk upgrade, with no other changes, cloning a small SSD to a larger SSD would be a more convenient method.

How to clone an SSD to a larger SSD in Windows 11

Since Windows 11 will soon start its 22H2 version update, you might start to think “how do I clone my SSD to a larger SSD in Windows 11” now. Wait for a second, before you start, there are some preparations you should take into your mind.

Cloning software can help users easily clone the disk; however, not every tool is as reliable and handy as AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. It is a practical disk and partition manager for all Windows users, for it supports Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7/XP/Vista.

If you’re a Windows Server user, don’t worry, it has a Server edition to assist you. Unlike Samsung Data Migration only supports Samsung devices, AOMEI Partition Assistant supports all brands of SSD in the market, Samsung, SanDisk, Intel, Kingston, Crucial… You can freely clone HDD to SSD, smaller SSD to larger SSD to use all free space on your devices.

Now, let’s see how to clone an SSD to a larger SSD in Windows 11 with AOMEI Partition Assistant.

Step 1. Plug larger SSD into PC and run cloning software.

Connect the larger SSD to your computer and ensure it can be detected. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. Click "Clone" in the top menu, and choose "Clone Disk".

Step 2. Check the cloning method and choose a suitable way.

Select a method to clone based on your case and click "Next".

Step 3. Choose the original disk.

Select the small SSD as your source disk and click “Next”.

Step 4. Select the destination disk and continue.

Choose the larger SSD as your destination disk and you can check "Optimize the performance of SSD" to align SSD partition automatically. Then, click “Next”.

Step 5. Choose an option to set partitions.

Choose a way to set your partitions.

You will see a note about how to boot OS from the destination disk.

Step 6. Confirm all operations.

Click “Apply” and “Proceed” to confirm the clone.

Now you can try to boot your computer from the larger SSD.

What you need to do after the clone

If you don’t remember what the note shows how to boot from the destination disk, here we’ll show you details.

1. Change boot order

Boot your PC, go to BIOS, and change the boot order.

You can run “SSD Secure Erase” to wipe the old SSD and make it a data disk.

2. If the larger SSD shows a smaller capacity:

• When you clone a smaller SSD to a larger SSD, the exceeding space will be shown as unallocated space in Disk Management. So, you need to create a new partition or allocate this space to another partition.

• If the destination cloned SSD is over 2TB and it’s an MBR partition style disk, please convert it to a GPT table, because the MBR disk has a 2TB limitation.

• The system recovery partition hinders the cloning from correctly scaling the C disk, you can change partition size without losing data to solve it.

Ending line

What you might wish to know about how to clone SSD to a large SSD in Windows 11 is all shown in this article.  AOMEI Partition Assistant offers you the best choice. After reading this article, you must find how versatile this tool is. In addition to all the functions we’ve mentioned above, you can also convert the file system between FAT32 and NTFS or fix the RAW drive. You can enjoy more convenient services like moving installed applications, converting dynamic disks to basic disks, and Partition Recovery Wizard, etc, after upgrading to the Professional edition.