[Solved] Cloning a Hard Drive/Solid State Drive Takes Too Long

Author: Linda Updated on Dec 06, 2021 Category: Disk/Partition Clone | User Guide

How to Fix: Cloning HDD/SSD Taking Too Long (6 Solutions)

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Tired of the lengthy SSD or HDD cloning process? Clone HDD or SSD easily and quickly with Disk Copy, the best disk cloning software to clone a hard drive and create a bootable Windows 10/8/7 clone.

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Question - Cloning HDD/SSD Takes a Long Time

"My Windows 10 clone HDD/SSD process is very slow. It seems to be taking forever. I'm trying to clone a 256GB hard drive to my external one. The copy speed started out fast and then dropped off for no reason. I am using Acronis True Image WD Edition. I started the cloning process yesterday, and it's been 24 hours, but it's only at 18%. Is this too slow, and what can I do?"

Analysis - How long does it take to clone a hard drive?

Estimate the amount of data on the hard drive you'll be copying. This is the most important factor in estimating how long the clone will take. How you go about cloning the drive also matters, so when looking at hard drive transfer rates, make sure the speeds quoted are “burst” rates and not sustained transfer rates.

A Seagate hard drive might advertise transfer rates of 100 MBps (megabytes per second), but in the real world it can't move 1 GB at that speed. Ditto for newer, high-speed SATA drives that tout 300 MBps transfers: You should cut that in half to estimate cloning time. So if your clone rate is 100 MBps, figure 17 minutes to clone a 100 GB drive. If it takes 87 minutes to clone 500 GB, that's your average rate.

Six Reasons Why Cloning Takes So Long

Why does cloning take so long? Our analysis suggests six main reasons.

1. The dataset is too large, cloning a significant amount of data takes a long time. In other words, the larger the size of the data, the longer the time it will take.

2. The USB connection is too slow for reading and writing. The cable itself can affect transfer speeds.

< strong >3. The source disk is old and has bad sectors. If your hard drive has bad sectors, this can affect the cloning process.

4. Your computer is too old. An outdated system can slow down any operation.

5. The target disk has bad sectors or read/write issues.

6. Tools. The disk-cloning utilities are inadequate, making the process a snail's pace.

6 Solutions - How to Solve the Slow Cloning Hard Drive Issue

Considering the reasons and causes mentioned above, we can accordingly fix the cloning hard drive very slow issue. Below are six solutions to speed up the HDD or SSD cloning process.

Solution 1: Wait patiently

If you're cloning a lot of data from a hard drive or other device, this could take some time. At a cloning speed of 100 MB/second, cloning a 100 GB drive will take about 17 minutes. You can estimate the time it'll take and check the results when it's done. If cloning just 100 MB of data takes an hour, read on for solutions.

Scanning for bad sectors may take a long time. In this case, you can try using a disk cloning utility.

Solution 2: Use a SATA connection

There are two types of hard drive interfaces that a computer may have: PATA (Parallel ATA), also called IDE, and SATA (Serial ATA). If your cloning process is slow, switching to SATA will solve this issue. PATA transfers data at speeds of 66/100/133 MB/s, while SATA transfers at 150/300/600 MB/s. The faster speed of SATA makes program loading quicker, as well as image and large file transfers.

Solution 3: Use a Bootable Clone Tool

If it takes a whole day to clone a 500GB hard drive, that's too slow! If you find that upgrading from USB 2.0 to 3.0 or SATA solves the issue, great. But if your cloning process is still sluggish, use the superfast disk cloning software – tools Disk Copy. It's a simple and secure disk duplication/clone tool that will help you migrate data and upgrade your hard drive at lightning speed. Plus, the latest version significantly improves cloning speed, so get it now!

How to Clone a Hard Drive

If you're rusty on the details of cloning, watch this video on how to use a disk cloning utility. And for help getting around slow clone speeds, check out this video tutorial.

Step 1. On a healthy Windows computer, download, install, and run a disk cloning tool. Connect an external storage device, such as a USB flash drive or external hard drive, to the PC. Click “Create Boot Disk.”

Step 2. Select the USB option, choose your device, and click "Create."

Wait for the process to complete, and you'll have a bootable disk.

Step 3. Connect the bootable USB drive and your new SSD/HDD to the computer whose disk you want to clone. Set your computer to boot from the bootable drive by changing the boot order in BIOS.

4. In the Disk Utility, click on "Disk Copy," and then select the source disk that you wish to copy or clone. Click "Next" to proceed.

Step 5: Select the target disk to clone/copy your old disk, then click "Next" to proceed. If asked to erase data from the target disk, click "OK" to confirm.

Step 6: Review and edit the disk layout, choosing to either Auto-resize to fit the disk, Copy the source's disk layout, or Edit the disk layout. It is recommended to select Auto-resize to fit the disk.

• Selecting “Copy Source” will copy cloning the partition layout of the source disk to the target disk. • Editing the disk layout allows you to manually adjust the size or location of partitions on the target disk. • If your target disk is an SSD, remember to check the “Target is SSD” option.

Click “Continue” to begin the disk clone or disk copy process.

Solution 4: Check CPU and memory usage

To check your CPU or disk usage:

Step 1. In the Windows search bar, type “Task Manager” and select “Task Manager.”

Step 2: Click on the "Processes" tab to see which processes are causing high hard drive or CPU usage.

Check your CPU and memory usage

If the source disk version is high, the cloning process might be slow. In this case, it is recommended to create a bootable drive with a disk cloning tool or clone on a computer with better specifications.

Solution 5: Replace the target disk with a healthy one

Another way to speed up the clone is to replace the target disk with a good one. If the target disk itself is problematic, you may need to buy a new one or replace it with a known good disk.

Step 1: Buy a new hard drive or SSD.

Step 2: Connect it to your computer with a SATA cable.

Step 3: Run the “Disk Clone” tool to clone the hard drive to the new one.

Solution 6: Try using a disk cloning tool

A good tool can save you time and effort. Disk Copy is the best disk cloning software that safely replicates everything on one disk to another on Windows. It can:

• Clone HDD to SSD
• Clone old hard drive to new one
• Download and clone HDD or SSD at fast speed.

Conclusions

The cable, the condition of your disks, and the cloning tool you use can all influence the speed of the clone. Choosing the right cable and disk cloning tool will get you the best results. AOMEI Backupper is a tool that can help you clone your hard drive or SSD quickly.

People ask these questions too.

If you have other issues with cloning an HDD or SSD, read on.

How long does it take to clone a 2 TB hard drive?

The time will vary depending on the six factors above, but you can assume that cloning a drive with a single 2 TB file would take around four to five hours for a 7200 RPM drive with a write speed of around 100 MBps.

How do I clone my SSD to a new SSD?

Clone SSD to SSD:

Step 1: Connect the new SSD to your computer and make sure it's detected.

Step 2: Download, install, and run a disk cloning tool on your computer.

Step 3. Select the target disk you want to clone/copy to.

Step 4: Click “OK” to begin the cloning process.

How do I clone my operating system from HDD to SSD?

You can use Todo Backup to migrate your OS from HDD to SSD without reinstalling Windows. Full guide: How to Migrate Operating System to SSD.