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- Created: February 20, 2020
- Updated: August 6, 2021
Often the same question is asked in different ways: How to copy a hard drive, how to clone one hard drive to another, how to clone a hard drive to SSD, how to clone a hard drive in Windows 7 / 10, etc. As you have noticed, copying the contents of a computer drive is called "cloning". This is just the way it is, and there is no need to delve into the semantics of the term.
Basically, hard disk cloning is a sector-by-sector transfer of data from one medium to another. The result is an exact copy of the original data carrier. For this, there are dozens of paid and free programs, also known as disk cloning software , also known as disk imaging software. These include both universal (any HDD, SSD) and specific, for example, for certain brand drives, for example, Samsung or Western Digital. The latter can also be operating system specific, file system specific, to be installed or portable.