Disk Cloning Scenarios #1 Chapter 3: Replace Small Hard Drives

How to replace small hard drives? Find four types of hard drives and corresponding storage capacity on this page. You can check your disk capacity before upgrading to bigger hard disks via EaseUS Disk Copy.

Hard drives, including small and large ones, are essential computer storage devices. Different users have different needs for hard drives. However, some users don't know how to check their disk capacity and can't tell if they should need to replace a small disk, let alone how to clone a disk. In this article from EaseUS Software, find these answers.

Main Types of Hard Drives

Hard drives generally contain HDD, SSD, Hybrid drive, and Fusion drive. In computing, the most common are mechanical hard drives and Solid-State drives. Similarly, Hybrid drive and Fusion drive also are physical computer storage devices.

A Hybrid drive (SSHD or dual-storage device) combines a quicker storage medium like an SSD with a larger-capacity HDD.

In contrast, the Fusion drive contains an HDD and NAND flash storage (SSD of 24GB or more) and presents it as a single-core, controlled logical volume. The latter is a type of hybrid drive technology released by Apple Inc.

Overview of HDD, SSD, Hybrid Drive, and Fusion Drive Storage Capacity

As you can see, storage space is one of the most essential references for selecting a disk. Here comes a form about the storage space of these hard drives.

Main Types of hard drives	Storage capacity	Valuation
HDD	16GB ~ 64GB	Lowest
	120GB and 256GB	An entry point for PCs and laptops
	500GB, 1TB, and 2TB	Most common
	More than 2TB	Greater demands
	20TB	Highest
SSD	120GB ~ 512GB	Most common
	30TB	Highest
Hybrid drive	Up to 2TB of HDD storage with 8GB of SSD storage	/
Fusion drive	1TB ~ 3TB of HDD storage with 24GB ~128GB flash storage	/

Check Your Hard Drive Space to Judge You Need to Replace Hard Drive or Not

Sometimes, you may find the storage space of your PC is running out, which suggests your hard drive is in a low disk or your hard drive storage space is a little small for you. If unsure, you can check the used and free space on your targeted hard drive.

Let's take the Local Disk (C:) as an example. Press Win + E to open File Explorer to check your C drive's total and used space. In addition, you can right-click on your C drive and select Properties to view your used and free space.

As you can see, if your C drive is almost full, it will automatically become red. This sign is a reminder to replace or upgrade your small hard drive.

Replace/Upgrade a Small Hard Drive

A 500 GB-sized hard drive is enough for most people's daily work. However, when it comes to game players, those users often choose disks ranging from 500GB to 2TB because certain games might take up more than 250 GB.  

Let's take Black Myth: Wukong as an example. Users of this game need at least a 1TB SSD available space.

That is to say, if your small HDD or SSD is insufficient to support smooth gameplay, the most efficient way to clone/upgrade the small hard drive to a larger one via this professional Disk Copy software, EaseUS Disk Copy.

Step 1. Download, install and run EaseUS Disk Copy on your PC.

Click "Disk Mode" and select the hard drive that you want to copy or clone. Click "Next" to continue.

Step 2. Select the destination disk.

Note: The destination disk should be at least the same big or even larger than the source disk if you want to copy or clone the source hard disk.

Step 3. Check and edit the disk layout.

If your destination disk is an SSD drive, do remember to Check the option if the target is SSD.

Step 4. Click "OK" to confirm if the program asks to erase data on the destination disk.

Step 5. Click "Proceed" to start the hard drive cloning process.