How to Clone Dynamic Disk to SSD Without Losing Data

As shown in the question from Reddit, many Windows users will encounter a problem: they cannot clone dynamic disks directly. Instead, you must convert the dynamic disk to a basic one and then clone the basic drive to another one.

Clone dynamic disk to SSD
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Cloning is the best way to help you transfer data from a dynamic disk to an HDD/SSD. This article will tell how to clone dynamic disk to SSD without converting or losing data.

What Is a Dynamic Disk & Why Need to Clone It

Dynamic disk and basic disk are 2 disk types for Windows to save data and support GPT and MBR partition styles. A dynamic drive can create 5 types of dynamic volumes: simple volume, striped volume, spanned volume, mirrored volume, and RAID-5 volume.

The dynamic disk can provide features that a basic disk doesn't have, including improving data's read-write speed efficiency, creating new volumes that span multiple disks, creating fault-tolerant volumes, etc.

Reasons to clone a dynamic disk vary but are not different from cloning a basic drive.

• For more storage space. In most circumstances, your hard drive is out of space, and you need to upgrade to a larger drive, be it an HDD or SSD.
• For an improved performance. Your dynamic drive may not perform well after a long time of use, and you need to clone the dynamic disk to SSD for better performance.
• For data protection. If you want to save your dynamic disk from any data loss risks, a simple way is to clone the dynamic disk to another drive.

However, it is not easy to manage your dynamic disk. Worse still, most partition or cloning tools don't support dynamic disk management. Fortunately, this is no longer the case with the help of powerful cloning software EaseUS Disk Copy, which can help you clone your dynamic hard drive to another drive without converting it to basic.

What You'll Need to Copy or Clone Dynamic Disk in Windows

To clone your dynamic disk to another drive successfully, you need to make some preparations:

How to Clone Dynamic Disk in Windows 11/10/8/7

EaseUS Disk Copy can help you directly clone your entire dynamic hard drive without trouble. That is why it is selected among the disk cloning software, free and paid, such as Clonezilla.

EaseUS disk cloning software can help you clone the system, partition, etc., and clone a hard drive with multiple partitions. In addition, it can also help you transfer Windows SSD to a new computer easily and quickly.

Whether you want to clone your dynamic disk or upgrade it to a larger one, EaseUS Disk Copy can meet your demands. Ensure to download it to your computer to help you copy data from one hard drive to another without data loss and OS reinstallation.

Here is how to clone a dynamic disk Using EaseUS Disk Copy on Windows 11/10/8/7

Prior Notice:

• The "Sector by sector copy" asks the size of your destination disk to be at least equal to or larger than that of the source disk. Leave this feature unchecked if you wish to clone a larger hard disk to a smaller hard disk.
• All data on the destination disk will be completely erased, so take care.

Step 1. To start copying/cloning an entire disk to another, choose this disk as the source disk under "Disk Mode" and click "Next".

Step 2. Choose the other disk as the destination disk.

Step 3. Check the disk layout of the two disks. You can manage the disk layout of the destination disk by selecting "Autofit the disk", "Copy as the source" or "Edit disk layout". 

• "Autofit the disk" makes some changes by default on the destination disk layout so that it can work at its best status.
• "Copy as the source"does not change anything on destination disk and the layout is the same as source disk.
• "Edit disk layout" allows you to manually resize/move partition layout on this destination disk.

Tick the "Check the option if the target is SSD" option to put your SSD in its best performance.

A message now appears, warning you that data will be lost. Please confirm this message by clicking "OK" and then click "Next".

Step 4. Click "Proceed" to officially execute the task.

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To Wrap Things Up

This is how to clone dynamic disk to SSD in Windows. After reading this blog, you may find it easy to clone/copy dynamic disk to HDD or SSD with the help of EaseUS disk cloning software. EaseUS Disk Copy can clone a dynamic disk to SSD without converting it to a basic disk or considering its disk type. It can also let you fix the cloned hard drive showing the wrong size and resize your disk during cloning. Just download it and explore it!

FAQs on How to Clone Dynamic Disk to SSD

1. Can you clone a dynamic disk?

Yes, you can clone a dynamic disk, but you need to use third-party cloning software like EaseUS Disk Copy. Such a tool can help you clone your entire dynamic drive to another drive without losing data and reinstalling Windows.

2. Can I clone a dynamic disk to a smaller SSD?

Yes, you can clone a dynamic disk to a smaller SSD as long as the target SSD is larger enough to hold the used space on the source drive. You can also delete temporary data, caches, duplicate files, corrupted files, or rarely used programs to reduce the space on your source disk.

3. Can Clonezilla clone dynamic disk?

Generally, Clonezilla can help you clone a dynamic disk. However, a user said that the rest of the space on the target drive cannot be used after cloning a dynamic drive. Acronis has the same result. Under such circumstances, you can try the EaseUS disk cloning tool.

4. Can I convert a dynamic disk to a basic disk?

Yes, you can convert a dynamic disk to a basic one using the Disk Management tool, but you will lose all your data.

Steps to convert a dynamic disk to a basic one in Disk Management:

• Back up data on the disk.
• In Disk Management, right-click each volume on the dynamic disk, then click Delete Volume.
• Click Yes.
• When all volumes on the dynamic disk are deleted, right-click the disk and click Convert to Basic Disk.