How to Clone a GPT Disk to SSD in Windows 11/10

Can you clone GPT HDD to SSD?

GPT (GUID Partition Table) and MBR (Master Boot Record) are two different ways of storing partitioning information on a drive, with GPT being the newer standard. You can clone GPT disks with qualified software, and it's also a good decision to clone GPT HDD to SSD for better performance.

It is not difficult to clone GPT HDD to GPT SSD - what you may encounter are mostly common problems of cloning HDD to SSD; But if you are cloning GPT to MBR SSD, you need to pay particular attention to the partition style and boot mode issue, otherwise you may not access the system properly.

In this article, I will introduce the best cloning software to do GPT disk clone.

Best cloning software to clone GPT disk to SSD

While there are many clone tools on the market, I will use AOMEI Backupper Professional here for its compatibility.

▪ Cloning options - It gives you options to clone entire hard drive, selected partitions or only operating system. Just choose based on the data you want to migrate.
▪ Disk size - Its intelligent mode copies only used sectors, hence allowing the migration to smaller SSD; If your target disk is larger, you can also choose sector-by-sector clone to copy all sectors indiscriminately, or edit partition size to allocate unused space.
▪ Partition style - It supports cloning both MBR and GPT disks. You can directly clone GPT to MBR without prior conversion. If your GPT disk has more than 4 primary partitions, don't worry, the excess ones will be converted to logical partitions to fit in the MBR SSD’ s partition limit.

To get started, you could download and install AOMEI Backupper on your PC now.

How to clone GPT disk to smaller SSD easily

AOMEI Backupper provides an intuitive interface which is easy to understand even for novice. Before cloning, you just need to connect the target SSD and make sure it can be detected by Windows. Then, launch the software to try the cloning features.

Notes:
👉 If you are going to clone Windows 11, and the target SSD is MBR, it's recommended to convert MBR to GPT for better support. You can do it using the Edit Partitions option.
👉 The cloning will overwrite everything on the target drive, so if there's any important data on it, go to Backup tab and make a backup first.

Step 1. Navigate to Clone tab, and select Disk Clone to clone the GPT disk.

Step 2. Click on the source disk that you want to clone, and click Next.

Step 3. Click on the destination disk (smaller SSD) and Next to continue.

Step 4. Check the option SSD Alignment to accelerate the target SSD, and click Start Clone to execute this operation.

✍ Related tips:

💬 Sector By Sector Clone: When you have a larger or equally sized target disk, you can tick this option to ensure cloning all the sectors, including unused or logically bad sectors.

💬 Edit Partitions: It allows you to adjust the partition size on the destination disk as well convert disk type if it's different from source disk.

• Copy without resizing partitions: It will not resize the partition size.
• Add unused space to all partitions: It will reallocate the unallocated space to each partition of the target disk, appropriate for the disk size.
• Manually adjust partition size: It allows you to extend unallocated space to any partition on the destination disk as you want.
• Convert the destination disk from MBR to GPT: It helps to convert the partition style of the destination disk if it is different from the source disk.

How to boot from the cloned SSD

Once the cloning is complete, you can shut down your computer and replace the GPT with the cloned SSD, then restart to check if it works properly.

If your computer has more than one slot, you can keep the old HDD as a secondary storage, and press the specific key (could be F2, F10, Esc, Del…depends on manufacturer) during startup to enter BIOS, then select the cloned SSD as the first boot option.

If the SSD is partitioned with MBR and hasn't been converted to GPT, then you will need to switch the boot mode from UEFI to legacy BIOS.

Bonus: Differences between GPT disk and MBR disk

The primary differences between GPT and MBR disks lie in how they store partitioning information, their capabilities, and compatibility with modern systems. Here's a breakdown of their key differences:

1. GPT and MBR works with different boot mode. Recent HDDs usually use GUID partition table (GPT) that supports booting system with UEFI mode, while many older drives are using Master Boot Record (MBR) that supports booting from Legacy BIOS.

2. MBR disk has a 2TB maximum size limit while GPT disks can have many much larger partitions.

3. GPT disk can create 128 primary partitions at most while MBR only supports 4 primary partitions or 3 primary partitions and 1 extended partition.

4. GPT disk only supports 64-bit computer while MBR disk supports both 32-bit and 64-bit computer.

Summary

To clone GPT disk to SSD, especially MBR SSD, the first thing is to understand the differences between GPT and MBR, otherwise your computer may fail to boot. After that, you need to find a reliable and powerful software like AOMEI Backupper Professional, which can convert MBR to GPT during the cloning, or cloning GPT to MBR directly.

Besides disk cloning, it can also be used to backup system, synchronize files, and many more. If you are using server-based computer, you can consider AOMEI Backupper Server.