Replacing the hard drive with an SSD is one of them more interesting hardware upgrades which we can perform on any computer equipment, as these SSDs offer a number of benefits in terms of performance, power consumption or noise emissions.

The benefits are immediate thanks to higher data transfer speeds, better operating system boot time, application access, or restarts from sleep or hibernation mode, it also takes up less space if we opt for an M.2 disk connected to PCIe.

Physical replacement of the hard drive with an SSD is a simple task, as we saw in this tutorial. But it also means moving the installation of Windows (or another operating system) if we want to keep the existing operating system, applications, settings and personal user data.

How to move Windows to SSD

Most SSD manufacturers include cloning tools with the purchase of units. The basic idea is to create an image of the hard disk operating system partition and move it to the SSD. You simply install the SSD next to the hard drive on your desktop PC and clone.

If we have a single-shaft laptop, the problem will change and we will need conversion kits and / or cabling to transfer data from USB to the SSD, usually SATA, before replacing the units. If we do not have this type of adapter or cloning software, we can use another method that is used to move any Windows system installed on the hard disk and then copy it to USB, leaving the partitions, system, applications, and all data. .

If necessary, delete unnecessary files

The only advantage of hard disks over SSDs is their lower price per GB, which is why hard disks tend to have higher capacity. Cloning is a 1: 1 copy, so the capacity of the SSD must be at least the size of the data being transferred. Example. If we have a partition with 300 GB of data occupied on the hard disk and the SSD has 250 GB, we will have to reduce 50 GB so that we can transfer data.

In these cases, we either buy a SSD with a larger capacity, or we have to delete unnecessary files first, free up space with a Windows disk cleaner, uninstall some applications or games, or simply delete files from Explorer.

Third party software

There is a specific type of software that will help us migrate data. If your SSD manufacturer did not provide you, you can use the Macrium Reflect application shown as an example. It is available in a free version and a trial version for testing for 30 days and it works really well. We will leave you step by step:

• We will download and install the application on our computer.

• We will create a boot drive. Macrium Setup will take care of downloading the necessary Windows PE files to create the boot drive. We can record it on an optical CD / DVD drive, on a USB flash drive or on external storage, which we will also use in the next step to create a backup image.

• We can back up our computer from the same Macrium Reflect. Activate the creation of a “backup disk image”, mark all partitions and select the folder on the external disk where it will be created.

• After creating the boot disk and backup, it is time to replace the hard disk with an SSD. Because the vast majority of these SATA drives have a standard 2.5-inch format, we will need a 3.5-inch adapter to connect it to our PC tower. If it is a laptop, it is a replacement of one unit for another.

• After installing the solid state drive, restart the computer from the boot drive created on the CD / DVD, flash drive, or external USB drive. Select the created backup image.

• Select to copy all data to the destination SSD by dragging each partition to the SSD. Macrium Reflect performs the whole process automatically and even resizes the partitions to fit the SSD, although it is important to note important precautions, the SSD must be larger than the amount of data transferred.

Personally, when replacing a storage disk and securing personal files, I would recommend performing a clean installation from scratch using a boot disk or factory recovery discs. However, if you prefer hard disk cloning to move the entire Windows installation and its data, this method will work for you.