If you want to clone M.2 SSD drive to a larger M.2 SSD so as to upgrade or replace the current M.2 SSD, you can make use of the powerful disk cloning tool -AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, which can clone all types of hard drives easily in Windows PC.
Hi, all. I have a computer with a Toshiba M.2 128GB SSD drive which has the Windows OS in it, and I need to clone it into a Samsung 970 EVO 250GB NVMe M.2 SSD since the Toshiba M.2 SSD is almost full. The problem is that I don’t know how to clone M.2 solid-state drive. Would anyone be able to suggest a reliable and elaborate way to do it? Thanks a lot!
M.2 is a form factor for SSDs (solid-state drives) that's shaped like a stick of gum. An SSD, which conforms to a computer industry specification written for internally mounted storage expansion cards of the M.2 form factor, is called as M.2 SSD. The NVMe M.2 SSD is an M.2 SSD drive that applies the Non-Volatile Memory Express communication protocol.
Just like cloning other types of hard drives, the main and most popular cloning the M.2 Solid-State Drive may include:
1. Upgrade an smaller M.2 SSD drive to a larger SSD drive to expand the storage space.
2. Replace the current M.2 SSD drive that is experiencing the sings of failure before it completely stops working.
3. Migrate or transfer all data from one M.2 SSD drive to another one conveniently.
No matter what’s your purpose of cloning the M.2 SSD drive, the core point is how to do it. The easiest way is to select a proper M.2 SSD cloning utility. Here we strongly recommend AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional (32-bit and 64-bit of Windows 11/10/8/7 and Windows XP/Vista are supported). This powerful disk cloning software supports cloning almost all drives with different interfaces, like SATA, mSATA, U.2, M.2, and PCIe. You can clone clone M.2 SSD to M.2 SSD, M.2 SSD to SATA HDD , clone SATA HDD to NVMe SSD, etc. Moreover, it has the following amazing functions:
Now comes the most important part: how to clone M.2 SSDD drive in Windows 10/8/7 step by step. 3 Steps are necessary in total.
First of all, we need to make sure that your computer has an M.2 SSD lot available. Then connect the target M.2 SSD drive to your computer and ensure it is detected.
After installing M.2 SSD drive into your computer, you can back up SSD before cloning because this operation will delete all data inside. Then carry out the procedures below:
Note: This demonstration is based on cloning system disk on to a larger drive. The demo version cannot execute the final operation.
1. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. Click “Clone Disk” in the right menu.
2. Choose a disk cloning method according to your situation and needs. Then click “Next”. Here we select “Clone Disk Quickly”.
3. In this window, choose the system disk as the source disk and click “Next”.
4. Choose the destination disk and click “Next”. You can tick “Optimize the performance of SSD”, which will align partitions on SSD to boost its performance.
5. Here, you can adjust the partition size on the destination disk as you require and click “Next”.
6. A note about how to boot from the destination disk will pop out. Read it carefully when necessary and click “Finish”.
7. At last, click “Apply” and “Proceed” to start cloning M.2 SSD drive.
If you want to clone only OS partition on the M.2 SSD drive to another hard drive, you can try “Migrate OS to SSD” wizard.
When you cloned the M.2 solid-state drive to another hard drive via AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, you also need to change the boot order to set PC boot from the cloned disk. If you are cloning the data M.2 SSD drive, you can skip this part.
1. Restart your computer and long press “ESC”, “F1”, “F2”, “F8”, or “F10” during the initial startup screen to access the BIOS environment.
2. Choose to enter BIOS setup. Use the arrow key to select the Boot tab and system devices will appear in order to priority.
3. To give the cloned hard drive boot sequence priority over other hard drives, move it to the first position in the list.
4. Save and exit the BIOS setup utility. Then the computer will restart with the changed settings.
Well, the above cloning tutorial is based on the precondition that the computer has an extra slot for connecting the destination M.2 SSD. What if your computer has only one M.2 slot? Don't worry, there are two workarounds for this situation.
1. Use an M.2 SATA to USB adapter. Connect your destination SSD drive to the SATA adapter, and plug the adapter into a USB port on your laptop. Then your laptop should detect the destination SSD as an external hard drive. At last, you can perform a cloning operation as shown above. After cloning, you can remove the old hard drive and install the new M.2 SSD on your computer.
2. Apply a piece of computer backup software. First of all, back up M.2 SSD and save the image to external hard drive (flash drive, NAS, shared folders, or other locations you can access within WinPE mode). Then, create a bootable USB drive. Replace the old M.2 SSD with the target SSD drive manually, and reboot your computer from the bootable media. Finally, restore the backup image to the newly installed SSD in the WinPE environment.
This article not only shows how to clone M.2 SSD to M.2 SSD with two slots but also tells you how to clone M.2 SSD with only one slot. So, no matter which situation you are in, you can find the perfect solution. Besides cloning M.2 SSD drive, AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional can also be used to clone USB drive, SD card, and more in Windows PC. To clone M.2 solid-state drives in Server 2019/2016/2012/2008/2003, AOMEI Partition Assistant Server can help.
