Clone SSD to HDD with Best SSD to HDD Clone Software

Why clone SSD to HDD?

With the popularization of SSDs, more and more people replace HDD with SSD in their desktop or laptop to enjoy less boot time and faster working speed. They clone HDD to SSD for that purpose. However, you may want to clone the other way around (i.e., clone SSD to HDD) in the following situations:

▪ Get more storage space. Usually, HDDs offer bigger capacities than SSDs do.
▪ Reduce budget. Although SSD prices have come down a lot in recent times, HDDs are cheaper than SSDs when it comes to the same capacity.
▪ Backup SSD. The lifespan of an SSD isn’t as long as that of an HDD, so you may copy SSD to HDD in case of hard drive failure someday.

Then, how to clone SSD to HDD safely and easily? You may continue reading.

Best SSD to HDD clone software for Windows PC

To make the cloning process smooth, you need reliable and specialized SSD to HDD clone software. Here I’d like to recommend the best disk cloning software - AOMEI Backupper Professional. It supports both 32-bit and 64-bit of Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP.

• Easy operations. With the Disk Clone feature, you can clone SSD to HDD or HDD to SSD with just a few clicks. 

• A wide range of hard drives supported. You don’t need to worry about your hard drive brands or interface types, for AOMEI Backupper supports nearly all common brands (e.g., WD, SanDisk, Seagate, Samsung) and interface types (e.g., IDE, SATA, SCSI, SAS).

• No OS reinstallation. All data in the source disk will be transferred to the destination disk after cloning, including the operating system, applications and personal files. You won’t waste your time reinstalling Windows or applications and configuring detailed settings. 

Learn how to clone SSD to HDD in detail below.

How to clone SSD to HDD in Windows 11/10/8/7 easily

Before you start, you may backup files on the destination HDD, because the cloning process will overwrite the destination disk. Then, follow the guidance below:

Step 1. Connect the destination HDD to your computer and make sure it is detected. Download, install and launch AOMEI Backupper.

Step 2. Click “Clone” on the left pane and select “Disk Clone”.

Step 3. Select the SSD as the source disk and click “Next”.

Step 4. Select the connected HDD as the destination disk and click “Next”.

Step 5. Confirm the operation and click “Start Clone”.

>> Edit partitions: there are four options offered – “Copy without resizing partitions”, “Add unused space to all partitions”, “Manually adjust partition size” and "Convert the destination disk from MBR (GPT) to GPT (MBR)".
>> SSD Alignment: use this option to improve the reading and writing speed of the destination disk if it is an SSD.
>> Sector by sector clone: it will clone every sector on the source disk no matter whether it is used or not, thus costing more time. It requires the destination disk to be equal to or larger than the source disk.

Step 6. (Optional) To boot from the cloned HDD, you can set HDD as the first boot device in BIOS.

Summary

AOMEI Backupper makes it quite easy to clone SSD to HDD in Windows 11/10/8/7. You still can use it as HDD to SSD cloning software. For example, you can use it to clone hard drive to smaller SSD to get faster reading and writing speed.

Apart from the clone feature, AOMEI Backupper is powerful Windows backup software. You can use it to backup system, disks, partitions or specific files and restore them when it is needed. Go ahead to have a try!