How to Clone Hard Drive to USB External Drive [ Windows 10/11]

Can I Clone a Hard Drive to a USB External Drive?

Yes, you absolutely can clone a hard drive (HDD or SSD) to a USB external drive. This process creates an exact copy of your source drive, allowing you to migrate everything to external drive for backup purposes.

However, Microsoft does NOT allow Windows to boot from external hard drive, even with the best hard drive cloning software. If you want to clone hard drive with an operating system, it’s suggested to find an M.2/PCIe/NVMe/SATA SSD drive for replacement.

Best External Hard Drive Cloner - AOMEI Cloner

AOMEI Cloner is one of the best external hard drive cloning software that can clone hard drive to USB external drive, clone external hard drive to another one, etc., in Windows 7, 8, 10, 11, and Windows Server.

How to Clone Hard Drive to USB External Drive

Step 1. Connect your USB external hard drive using a USB cable or enclosure. Open AOMEI Cloner after installing and click Clone > Disk Clone to get started.

Step 2. Select your hard drive as the source drive and the USB external drive as the targetdrive. Click Next after each selection.

Step 3. It will automatically resize the target drive to full capacity (if it’s large). You can click Edit Partitions to confirm this. For an SSD disk, it’s suggested to enable SSD Alignment for high performance.

Step 4. Click Start Clone to clone hard drive to USB external drive and wait for completion. After cloning, navigate to this drive and verify your data.

Conclusion

Of course, you can clone hard drive to USB external drive, but it’s suggested to use it as a backup copy or for data migration because Microsoft won’t allow Windows to boot from external hard drive.

A reliable external hard drive cloner like AOMEI Cloner (no worries) is necessary to migrate data from one hard drive to another quickly, and it supports auto-resize target drive (if it’s larger).

FAQs

1. What tools or software do I need to clone a hard drive to a USB external drive?

You need an external drive with sufficient capacity to hold all data on the source drive and reliable cloning software like AOMEI Cloner. The USB cables or enclosure are also necessary.

2. Can I use a cloned USB external drive as a bootable drive?

If you use it as a bootable device to access the Windows Recovery Environment, the answer is yes. However, if you attempt to boot the Windows operating system from it, your computer may suffer a blue screen of death.

3. How long does it take to clone a hard drive to a USB external drive?

The time required to clone a hard drive depends on factors like disk types, data size, disk speed of the source and destination drives, USB connection interface(e.g., USB 2.0, 3.0, or 3.1), etc. For example, cloning a 500GB drive over USB 3.0 might take 1-2 hours, while larger drives or slower connections could take longer.

4. Do I need to format the USB external drive before cloning?

In most cases, the cloning software will overwrite the USB external drive, so formatting may not be strictly necessary. However, it’s recommended to format the drive to ensure compatibility and avoid errors. Use a file system like NTFS and back up any important data on the USB drive before cloning.

5. Does cloning a drive make it bootable?

If the source drive contains an operating system, the cloned drive will be bootable as well. Note Microsoft does not allow Windows to boot from an external drive. So please prepare a SATA/M.2/PCIe/NVMe as new SSD for cloning.

6. Is it better to copy or clone a hard drive?

Typically, copying a hard drive requires you to manually select files and move them to another location. Cloning a hard drive, however, allows you to transfer everything from one drive to another with just a few clicks to select the source and destination drives.