Answered: Does Intel Data Migration Software Work with Other SSD?

About Intel Data Migration Software

Intel Data Migration Software is designed for users to transfer all data from a regular storage device (such as a hard disk drive) to an Intel Solid-State Drive (SSD). How to use Intel Data Migration Software? Please do as below:

Step 1. Download, install and launch Intel Data Migration Software. Click “Start Now” in the right top corner.

Step 2. Choose a proper “Clone Method” based on your situation and requirement.

Note: the automatic mode will handle everything in the cloning process while a manual mode gives the user better control over the process.

Step 3. Choose your source disk from the given list and click on “Next”.

Note: all existing contents on the target Intel SSD will be erased in the process, so please back up files that are important in advance.

Step 4. Select the destination disk and click on “Next”.

Step 5. In the “Summary” screen, click “Proceed” to commit the pending operation.

Step 6. Click on the “Restart” button, otherwise, the cloning task will be canceled.

Does Intel Data Migration Software work with other SSD?

The above section shows how to use Intel Data Migration software for transferring data from one hard disk to an Intel SSD drive. However, some users are wondering whether the Intel Data Migration Software with other SSD. Namely, is it possible to clone a hard drive to some other branded SSD like Samsung, Patriot, Western Digital, Crucial, etc, not just Intel?

We can get some clues from the Intel Data Migration Software user guide: The Data Migration software only works with Intel SSD only. If you receive an error message, make sure that you have an Intel SSD connected to your system. Therefore, the Intel Data Migration Software does not work with other SSD drives. In addition to this drawback, this software has reached the end of life and will no longer be available as of March 24, 2020. All versions are provided as is with no updates supported.

Free Intel Data Migration Software workaround

Since Intel Data Migration Software does not work with other SSD drive, you might be searching for an alternative, which can migrate data among all popular brands of solid-state drives. Here we strongly recommended the free partition manager named AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. It does not set any limits on which manufacturers the source disk and destination disk are from. Besides, it can transfer data from HDD to SSD, SSD to HDD, HDD to HDD, and SSD to SSD by cloning. And two disk clone methods are available for choice:

①Clone Disk Quickly: clone only used sectors to destination disk so that you can clone large hard drive to smaller hard drive as long as it is the same or larger than the used space on the old storage device.
②Sector-by-Sector Clone: clone both used and unused sectors to target disk so the destination disk must be larger than the source disk.

At the same time, you should know that the free edition only supports cloning MBR data disk to MBR disk. If you are cloning MBR boot disk to MBR or GPT, GPT boot disk to MBR, or GPT to GPT, please upgrade to Professional edition. Next, we will show you how to clone an MBR data disk to another MBR hard disk.

Step 1. Download, install and run the freeware. Right-click the source disk and click on “Clone Disk”.

Step 2. Choose an appropriate clone method and hit on “Next”. Here we choose “Clone Disk Quickly”.

Step 3. Select the destination disk and click on “Next”. If it is an SSD drive, tick “Optimize the performance of SSD” to improve its data read and write performance.

Step 4. Here, you can adjust the partition size on the destination disk as you need and click “Next”.

Step 5. Read the next boot note if necessary and click on “Finish”.

Step 6. At last, click “Apply” to commit the pending operation.

After the data migration onto your new (Intel) SSD is complete, you can replace your old hard disk with your new Intel SSD. For desktop computers, you can either physically remove the old hard disk drive and install the new hard disk, or keep the hard disk drive in your computer and change the boot order of the drives in the system BIOS so that you can boot computer from the cloned hard drive. For laptop computers, remove the old hard disk drive and replace it with your new Intel SSD.

Summary

Now, you must have found the anwer to “Does Intel Data Migration work with other SSD” question. And the free AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard can be a great workaround when the Intel Data Migration does not detect SSD or not clone as it should. Moreover, the freeware can do more than you expected. For example, it can clone only a partition to another disk, transfer OS to SSD with secure boot, move partition, merge partition, convert MBR and GPT without deleting partitions, etc. If you are a Windows Server user, please try AOMEI Partition Assistant Server instead.