How to Copy Your Windows Installation to an SSD

If you’re looking to upgrade your computer to a solid-state drive but don’t want to start everything back up from scratch, here’s how to transfer your data onto your new hard drive.

If you're still using a traditional, spinning hard disk on your computer, you're missing out. Swapping it out for a solid-state drive (SSD) is one of the best upgrades you can make in terms of speeding up your computer. Your computer will boot faster, programs will launch instantly, and games won't take so long to load..

You could reinstall your Windows installation from scratch, if you wanted to, and start new with a fresh, squeaky-clean system. But while it seems simpler, it's actually more of a hassle. As long as you follow these instructions to the letter, you should be back up and running in no time, with all your data intact.

You'll need a few things before you get started:

What You'll Need: An SSD

Obviously, in order to upgrade to an SSD, you'll need to...well, buy an SSD. We have some recommendations here, though if you're on a pretty strict budget, we have a separate list of cheap SSDs as well. Make sure to buy one big enough to fit all your data—if you have a 500GB hard drive now, you should probably spring for a similarly sized SSD. The only exception is if you're on a desktop computer, and have room for multiple hard drives. In that case, you could store Windows and your programs on the SSD while putting your music, movies, and other data on a second, larger hard disk.

What You'll Need: A USB-to-SATA Dock

During this process, you'll need both your SSD and your old hard drive connected to your computer at the same time. If you're using a laptop with only one hard drive slot, that means you'll need an external adapter, dock, or enclosure that can connect your bare SSD to your computer over USB. (Again, desktop users may not need this if they have room for two drives inside their PC—you can just install it internally alongside your old hard drive.)

What You'll Need: EaseUS Todo Backup for Windows

There are many different drive cloning tools on the market, but when cloning a hard drive to SSD, I recommend EaseUS Todo Backup. Download the free version, enter your email and subscribe to the newsletter to get the download link, but it's worth it, and you can just unsubscribe later. When installing, don't worry about setting your default folder for backups—we won't be using that feature, so you can put it anywhere for now. It'll bug you a few times to upgrade to the paid home version, but just tell it to stick with the free version. That's all you'll need.

Once you've gathered up those necessities, it's time to get started.

Back Up Your Data (and Free Up Space, if Necessary)

Before you start messing with drives and formatting partitions, it's absolutely necessary to back up your data first. A simple misclick can result in you erasing everything, so do not continue until you've backed up all of your data. If you aren't backing up your computer, here's our favorite software for the job—though for today's purposes, copying your important data to an external drive will do in a pinch.

If you're upgrading to an SSD that's smaller than your current hard drive, you'll want to take extra care here. This isn't as common as it once was, thanks to bigger, less expensive SSDs, but if that's the case for you, you'll need to delete some files and free up space on your hard drive before cloning it. Otherwise, your data won't fit. In that case, I recommend making sure that data is backed up to an external hard drive before continuing, unless you're okay with deleting it all permanently. Once your data is safe and secure, continue onto the next step.

Plug in and Initialize Your SSD

Plug your SSD into the SATA-to-USB adapter, and then plug that into your computer. If it's a brand new drive, you probably won't see the drive pop up in Windows Explorer, but don't worry; it just needs to be initialized first. Open the Start menu and type "partitions" in the search box. Click the "Create and format hard disk partitions" option, and Disk Management will open. It'll prompt you to initialize the drive using either the GPT or MBR partition table. I'll be using MBR for my SSD, since I have an older motherboard in this PC that doesn't have UEFI, and thus can't boot from GPT disks. If you have a newer PC, you might be able to use GPT, but when in doubt, use MBR.

If you aren't prompted to initialize the drive, and don't see it in Disk Management, double-check that it's properly connected to your computer, and that the enclosure or dock is turned on (if necessary).

Once the drive has been initialized, you should see the drive show up in the bottom pane of Disk Management, as unallocated space. You still won't see it in Windows Explorer, but that's okay, since EaseUS will be able to see it. Close Disk Management and continue to the next step.

Clone Your Hard Drive

Open EaseUS Todo Backup and you'll be greeted with an empty window. Click the "Clone" icon in the left sidebar—it's the one with two squares, near the bottom—and select the hard disk with your C: drive as the source. Be sure to check the box for the entire Hard Disk, not just the C: partition itself, since you'll need to clone the "System Reserved" partition as well. Click Next.

On the next page, you'll choose the target disk. In this case, that's your SSD. Again, select the entire disk by checking the box next to "Hard Disk," and make absolutely sure you're selecting the SSD, since whatever drive you select in this step will be erased. Thankfully, our SSD is empty, unallocated space, so we don't need to be worried about erasing anything important.

Align Your Partitions

Before moving on, click the "Advanced Options" button and check the "Optimize for SSD" button. This is important, since it'll align the partitions in a way that ensures you're getting the maximum speed out of your SSD. Click OK, then click Next. EaseUS will ask to confirm your choice, and give you a preview of how much space will be used on your SSD. Click Proceed to begin the process.

Wait...and Wait, and Wait

This may take a few hours, especially if your hard drive and SSD are rather large. So go binge-watch some Netflix and come back in a while. When it’s done, click the "Finish" button. You should see your new SSD in Windows Explorer, complete with all your data.

Install Your SSD

Next, shut down your computer. It's time to install that SSD in your computer permanently. If you have a laptop with only one hard drive slot, you'll need to remove your old hard drive and replace it with your SSD. This is a bit different on every laptop, but you can get a general idea of the process with our guide here. If you have a desktop PC with more than one hard drive slot, you can leave your old hard drive in as extra storage, and just install your SSD alongside it.

Reboot From Your New Drive

Once you're finished installing the SSD, you'll need to tell your computer to boot from it. (This may not be necessary on laptops with just one drive, but if you experience problems booting, it can help on some PCs.) Turn your computer on and enter its BIOS/UEFI setup—this is a bit different on every PC, but it'll usually say something like "Press DEL to enter setup" on the boot screen, so you'll want to press the corresponding key as it starts up.

From there, look for your BIOS' boot options. These will be in a different spot depending on your computer, but once you find them, you'll want to select the option to change the boot sequence. Choose your SSD from the list as the first boot drive, then head back to the BIOS' main menu to exit, saving your settings. Your computer will reboot, and if all went well, it should plop you back into Windows faster than ever before. Open Windows Explorer and check to confirm that your SSD is, in fact, the C: drive. If everything looks good, you're ready to rock, and your computer should feel significantly snappier without having to reinstall a thing.