Can I Use an External SSD as a Boot Drive?
Jonna joined AOMEI in 2021 and has become a professional in the areas of computer backup and restoration, disk cloning, file synchronization, etc. She maintains a keen eye for the latest technology trends, ensuring that the information provided is always in step with industry developments.
Yes, you can use an external solid state drive (SSD) as a boot drive.
A boot drive is a storage device that contains the operating system, and it is used to start up the computer. By using an external SSD as your boot drive, you can install the operating system onto the external SSD and boot the computer from it.
To use external SSD as boot drive on Windows 10/8/7, there are three stages to go:
Stage 1. Prepare an external SSD and put it into you computer.
Stage 2. Install Windows OS on the external SSD.
Stage 3. Set the external SSD as your boot drive in BIOS.
It is easy to connect SSD with your computer, but how to install OS on an external SSD and boot Windows from external SSD? There are several approaches to installing an operating system on an SSD, such as creating Windows ISO file or cloning the Windows operating system. Whichever way you choose, the best and easiest tool to use is AOMEI Backupper Professional.
AOMEI Backupper - Professional Disk Cloning Software
Clone HDD to smaller/larger SSD, clone an entire disk or a specific partition without interrupting your work.
This tool allows you to clone the disk containing your system to an external SSD/HDD easily, and after cloning you can boot your computer directly from the cloned disk.
♦ Note: By default, it uses Intelligent Clone to only clone the used sectors. But it also offers Sector by Sector Clone to clone larger drive to smaller drive as long as there is enough space on the external SSD to accommodate your Windows operating system.
Here is how to install OS on external SSD with the cloning feature of AOMEI Backupper:
1Connect the external SSD to your computer, ensuring it's recognized. Launch AOMEI Backupper Professional and click Clone -> Disk Clone.
♦ Note: Alternatively, you can also use the System Clone option to only clone system partition and system-related partition(s).
2Select the disk containing Windows OS as the source disk.
3Designate your external SSD as the destination disk.
4To optimize the reading and writing speed of the SSD, check the SSD Alignment option. Then, click Start Clone.
To boot your Windows from external SSD, follow these steps:
1Restart your computer and press the designated key (commonly F1, F2, F10, F12, Delete, etc.) to access the BIOS settings.
2Navigate to the Boot menu. Change the boot order: Locate the target external SSD under the Boot Priority tab and move it to the top.
3Save the changes you've made in the BIOS settings and exit.
