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I bought a 500GB SSD to replace my 500GB HDD. Now I want to clone the HDD to the SSD before I replace the HDD drive with the SSD. I have a mixture of Windows 10 and Linux partitions on the HDD. What is the best way to clone it to the SSD?

My Linux partitions are an ext4 and a swap.

The SSD can only be connected to a USB port for cloning.

Tony
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2 Answers2

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  • As with all these actions: making a backup is mandatory.
  • If this is a notebook with only 1 bay: get an external drive bay and put the SSD into the bay and connect it to your system. You can do without, but it is a bit more risky: if the SSD falls onto the ground it might damage.
  • If this is a system with more bays: add it.
  • Mount it. Make sure using lsblk before and after mounting the SSD to make 100% sure you pick the correct devices.

Now if you feel like going on an adventure (and yeah some of us are going to gniffle):

  • use the ddcommand to copy data from your system to the SSD.

    sudo dd if=source of=destination status=progress

    where source is your system (probably /dev/sda) and destination your SSD (/dev/sdb?). Make sure using lsblk before and after connecting the SSD to make 100% sure you pick the correct devices.

  • but I would suggest using Clonezilla as dd -will- -without- -questioning- destroy your current system if you mess up the command.

Pablo Bianchi
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Rinzwind
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I have used clonezilla and I am now OK. I have both Ubuntu and Windows 10.

Tony
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