How to Clone a Hard Drive on Windows and Mac

The upgrade of a disc on your PC is generally not so difficult, but it may be delicate to move the data and, more importantly, the operating system to the new disk. It is recommended to install the operating system again on the new SSD or HDD that you have bought. However, it is not always the most practical way to proceed.

Do you rather clone your existing disc on the new? The hard drive cloning process is not too complicated, provided you know which steps to follow. Here is what you need to know about the disk cloning and how to clone a hard drive.

Prepare to clone a hard drive

There are several good reasons why you want to create a disk image of an existing reader. You may have an aging hard drive that you want to replace with an SSD disc, or maybe you want to upgrade it to get more storage space. Whatever reason, you will need two players: the reader you want to clone and the new destination player, and both will have to be connected to the same computer.

If you try to upgrade the internal disk of a PC, you have two options to connect the destination disk. If you have a location or a reader bay available on your computer, you can simply install the new target disk next to the existing player. If you do not have a free location, you can connect the destination disk via a USB case. These boxes allow you to connect a NVME SSD, SATA SSD or a hard drive to your PC with a USB cable, mainly acting as an external storage device. You can then remove it from the case and install it on your computer.

Another thing to consider is the storage capacity of the two discs. The cloned disc will need at least as much space as the main disc. Thus, if the reader you are trying to clone is a disc of 2 teraoctets, the cloned disc should have a capacity (or a free space) of 2 TB or more. Technically, you can clone a larger disk on a smaller disc if the capacity of the disc used is lower, but you will have to reduce the storage partitions of the larger driver enough to hold on the new target disk. The cloning software mentioned in the next section can help you do so.

Once the two discs have been connected to your computer, you will need a disk cloning utility to create an exact copy of your hard drive. For the purposes of this guide, I cloned the internal SSD of a Windows PC and a MacBook on an external disk, which is a SSD NVME CRUCIAL P310 2 280 disk installed in a Zikedrive case.

How to clone a hard drive under Windows

There are a few utilities that will allow you to clone a hard drive under Windows, but many are paid applications with a free trial. Easeus Disk Copy is a good example of a disc and cloning utility for Windows. However, our recommendation is Diskgenius, which is a light utility that will allow you to clone a hard drive in a usual way, as well as a dedicated option to move operating systems to a new disk.

To clone a disc in Diskgenius under Windows, follow these steps:

• Download and install Diskgenius from the official website and run it.
• In the Diskgenius menu bar, click on Toolsand click on Clone a disc.
• In the contextual window, select your source disk from the options, then click on ALL RIGHT.
• Diskgenius will show you an prompt asking if you migrate your system and want to make it amorçable. Click No.
• In the new contextual window, select the SSD or the target hard disk and click on ALL RIGHT.
• Click To start To start cloning your hard drive.

To clone an operating system installation using Diskgenius, follow these steps:

• Download Diskgenius from the official website. Run the application once installed.
• In the Diskgenius menu bar, click on Toolsand click on System migration. Alternately, you can also click on the Migration of the operating system icon on the secondary menu bar.
• In the contextual window, select your target disk from the options, then click on ALL RIGHT. Diskgenius automatically detects your source reader by checking the installed operating system.
• Diskgenius will show you a warning regarding the erasure of your data on the destination reader. Click ALL RIGHT.
• In the new window, select the target SSD or hard drive and click on ALL RIGHT.
• Click To start To start moving the installation of your operating system.

How to clone a hard drive on Mac

Cloning a hard drive on a Mac is a different process. If you have a more recent MacBook or Imac, you cannot replace the hard drive. Mac based on Apple Silicon have welded storage, so there is no simple way to upgrade it.

There are two approaches to adopt here. One is to clone a reader with a third -party utility and the other is to use the Time Machine macOS functionality to create a backup of your files that you can use to restore your system in the event of data loss. In both cases, it is ideal to make sure that your secondary disk is formatted in APFS before starting.

You can do it via Disk utility On macOS. Simply select the reader, click on To eraseselect Apfs as format and click on To erase Again.

To clone your Mac’s hard drive on a secondary disk, we recommend that you use Superduper. It is a simple utility that will copy all of the disk, including your data, the installed programs and the start -up sectors, on your target disk. It is available in the form of a paid program and offers a free trial.

Follow the steps below to configure Time Machine on Mac:

• Download and install Superduper from the official website, by clicking on the button Download Under download now and run it.
• Give the application full access to the disc by following the application for the Settings application by clicking on the button Open security and confidentiality button, by clicking on the most (+) Sign, selection Superduperand by clicking Open.
• Click on the Leave and reopen Button to restart Superduper with new authorizations.
• In the Superduper window, click on the drop -down menu next to Copy To select the disk you want to clone.
• Click on the second drop -down menu to select the target disk.
• Make sure the drop-down menu next to the use indicates “Backup – All files.“”
• Click Copy To start the cloning process.

You can use the Time Machine feature to create a hard drive backup from your Mac. If you just need to move your macOS installation, using Time Machine is the solution, instead of cloning your macOS hard drive. Time Machine also needs your backup disc to be formatted in APFS format. Follow these steps to configure Time Machine:

• Open Time travel machine from the Launchpad by looking for it among the applications listed under the Utility case.
• Once open, you will receive a configuration prompt. Click Configure Time Machine. This option is also found in the Parameters Application under the General tongue.
• Click Add a backup disc … To start the process.
• Click on the disk you want to save, then click on Configure the disc ….
• In the configuration window, select your favorite options for encryption, password, indices and the use limit of the disk, if applicable. When you are ready, click finished.

Time Machine will configure your disk after an interval of one minute and will show you the progression in the Time Machine window of the Settings Application. You will receive a notification once the disk is ready to be used. Note that Time Machine regularly performs copies on your disk, so if you want an update backup, it is ideal to connect the reader to your Mac and save it from time to time.

Once you have cloned your disc, you will have to exchange it. If you have cloned it to replace a main disk that runs the operating system, it is best to try to start from the disc before exchanging it. You can do this via the Windows starter menu or the starter manager on a Mac.

If you want to clone a disk but you don’t know which disk to use for the process, you can consult our recommendations for the best external and SSD hard drives. Alternatively, if you plan to replace an aging computer, see our best choices for the best MacBook and the best laptop to get now.