Is it worth upgrading to SSHD? You can clone HDD to SSHD easily without the need to reinstall Windows and your installed applications.
Solid State Hybrid Drive (SSHD), a physical storage device, is integrated by fast storage medium like NAND flash memory and a hard disk drive. If you need to upgrade your hard drive, an SSHD is a good choice. You do not need to reinstall Windows and programs as you can clone HDD to SSHD along with everything on it.
By increasing the flash memory to prefetch the data, SSHD has improved performance. You may find this generation of hybrid drive can not only provide a better performance, but reduce the read and write times of hard disk, which can cut down the power consumption and increase the battery life of laptops.
SSD in a hybrid drive is just like a cache for the data stored on the HDD. It can keep the copy of the most frequently used data on the faster SSD to improve the overall performance.
Feature |
HDD (Hard Disk Drive) |
SSHD (Solid-State Hybrid Drive) |
Technology |
Spinning disks (platters) |
Combination of HDD and integrated SSD |
Speed |
Slower compared to SSDs/SSHDs |
Faster than HDD, slower than SSD |
Performance |
Limited by mechanical movement |
Better performance due to SSD cache |
Durability |
Sensitive to physical shocks |
More durable due to SSD cache |
Cost |
Generally more affordable |
Intermediate cost between HDD and SSD |
To ensure the clone process goes smooth and the cloned drive boots fine, using a proper hard drive cloning tool is key. Luckily, you can use AOMEI Backupper Professional, the best disk cloning software for Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7.
AOMEI Backupper has perfect support for SSHD to ensure that you can upgrade your HDD to SSHD successfully, and it offers three clone types to meet your diverse needs.
Take Seagate SSHD as an example. After you connect the new SSHD to your computer along with the original hard drive, you can follow the 5 steps below to run Seagate clone HDD to SSHD.
Note: If the SSHD contains any data, make a backup first. Otherwise, you'll lose the data after cloning.
Step 1. Download AOMEI Backupper. Install and launch it.
Step 2. Select Disk Clone under the Clone tab.
Step 3. Select the original hard drive that you want to clone as the Source Disk. Then click Next.
Step 4. Select the Seagate SSHD as the Destination Disk and click Next to continue.
Step 5. Check the box of SSD Alignment and then click Start Clone on the final page to run this operation.
✍ Tips:
When the cloning process is complete, which will not take long, you can switch the boot order in BIOS to boot from the cloned drive.
If your laptop has only one drive bay and you do not have an adapter to connect the new drive externally, this tool offers the backup and restore feature to help you upgrade to SSHD without reinstalling Windows. The whole process is as follows:
1. Create a disk image of the old HDD and create a bootable media with AOMEI Backupper.
2. Swap HDD for SSHD.
3. Boot your computer from the bootable media and AOMEI Backupper will load up automatically. Go to Restore > Select Task/Select Image File and follow the wizard to restore the disk image to the SSHD.
It is quite simple to clone HDD to SSHD using AOMEI Backupper. The program supports all kinds of HDDs, SSDs and SSHDs, regardless of disk interface and disk size. So you can also use it to clone HDD to Crucial SSD, clone SSD to larger SSD, etc. Try it right now!