How to Clone Hard Drive to SanDisk SSD in Windows 10/11

Need to Replace Hard Drive with SanDisk SSD

Compared with HDDs, solid state drives (SSDs) come with faster startup and read/write speed so that many users want to replace their old hard drive with an SSD. Among all the choices, SanDisk SSD is a popular one due to its outstanding performance and compatibility.

However, reinstalling Windows 11, 10, 7, etc. and all the apps on the new SanDisk disk can be a headache, not to mention those precious personal files. So, is there a way to clone everything on the hard drive to SanDisk SSD?

The answer is yes. You can make an exact copy of the source hard drive, transfer it to the SanDisk drive, and then boot Windows from the cloned SSD. To achieve this, all you need is professional SanDisk SSD clone software.

Does SanDisk SSD Come with Cloning Software?

SanDisk SSD doesn't come with a cloning software, but you can download Acronis True Image for Western Digital, which can back up and clone files, programs, and operating system of a Western Digital disk (including WD, SanDisk and G-Technology).

This software is available under a limited time offer and must be redeemed by download and install within 90 days of purchase or by December 31, 2023, whichever is earlier.

Meanwhile, because this product is designed for certain products, it is also limited in its scope of use. It can only be used when a Western Digital storage device is detected on your system. And in actual use, many users reported that the product could not detect the SanDisk SSD connected through an external dock or adapter.

✍Other limitations of Acronis True Image for Western Digital:

• It doesn't support cloning OS to external USB drive, or an internal drive inside of external drive bay/enclosure.
• The source and target disks must have equal logical sector size.
• The cloning process will fail if the orginal drive has errors or bad sectors.
• It only supports cloning an entire disk. Cloning a single partition is not supported.

If any of the above factors prevent you from using, we recommended you an alternative SanDisk cloning software, AOMEI Backupper. It is much less restrictive, and supports any brand of HDDs and SSDs that can be detected by Windows (not only SanDisk).

Best SanDisk Cloning Software to Migrate Data and OS

AOMEI Backupper Professional is the best tool for SanDisk cloning from HDD to SSD. It’s simple but professional, allowing you to clone entire disk, selected partitions or only OS directly. It is not only a SanDisk clone software, but also works with other brands of SSDs, HDDs, USB drives, NAS, SSHD, etc.

In practical use, it also has the following advantages:

✔ Support all Windows editions. AOMEI Backupper can be used in Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10/11.

✔ Make an exact copy of hard drive and ensure secure boot. Compared with fresh install, the “Clone” feature can avoid reinstalling system from scratch, installed programs and data loss.

✔ Clone hard drive to SanDisk SSD regardless of disk size. By default, this software clones only used sectors and allows you to clone larger HDD to smaller SSD. You can also clone to a larger drive as you need.

✔ Advanced cloning features. Use “Sector By Sector Clone to clone all sectors whether used or not, accelerate target SSDs with “SSD Alignment”, change partition size with "Edit Partitions" to make full use of disk capacity.

Hit the download button below to try it now, and follow the guide to demonstrate cloning HDD to SanDisk SSD.

How to Clone SanDisk Hard Drive to SSD Step by Step

With the SanDisk SSD cloning software, you can try the following steps for SanDisk data migration:

Step 1. Connect the target SanDisk SSD.

Before starting SanDisk clone HDD to SSD, you need to connect SanDisk SSD via one of the following 2 methods:

• If your computer has only one slot, you need an SATA to USB adapter or SSD enclosure to connect the target drive to your PC externally.

• If there's more slot, you can add the SSD as a secondary disk so to clone HDD to SSD without SATA to USB cable.

Step 2. Launch the migration tool to setup disk cloning.

Install the SanDisk clone software, and launch its main interface. Select Disk Clone under Clone tab. There's also a System Clone option allowing you to only move OS to another drive.

Note: This software supports cloning both data disks and systems disks from MBR to MBR/MBR to GPT, or GPT to GPT/GPT to MBR. But please make sure the partition style of the target disk is compatible with the boot mode (MBR for legacy BIOS and GPT for UEFI).

Step 3. Specify the source hard drive and target SSD.

Select the current HDD (here is disk 0) as the source disk, and click Next to continue.

Select your SanDisk SSD (here is disk 1) as the destination disk to receive the disk copy. Click Next.

Step 4. Initiate the cloning process.

Select SSD Alignment to accelerate the target SanDisk SSD, and click Start Clone to continue. Wait for it to complete.

FAQs about HDD clone to SanDisk SSD

Wrapping things up

With SanDisk cloning software - AOMEI Backupper, you can easily to clone hard drive to SanDisk SSD. But it’s still can regarded as other branded SSD cloning software, such as, OCZ SSD clone software, ADATA SSD clone software, WD disk cloning sofwtare, M.2 SSD cloner, and so on. And all features mentioned above can be applied to all SSDs.

Need to clone hard drive to SSD successfully without reinstalling, even for a smaller one? Download AOMEI Backupper and then follow the above steps to clone disk.