Whats the best way to copy all data from one hard drive to another?

Nick89 · Oct 17, 2011

I got another 1TB HD and I want to copy all the old data from two of my 250gb Hard drives to the new 1TB drive.

What is the best way to do this?

John Doe · Oct 17, 2011

I'd mirror them with Acronis True Image.

mastrdrver · Oct 17, 2011

If you have a Western Digital drive, then you can use Acronis for free. I've used it several times to mirror drives and never once had a problem.

m4gicfour · Oct 17, 2011

If it's just a couple of data drives that don't hold anything but movies, documents, music, and archives then you can just plain old copy the files, perhaps using a utility such as TeraCopy to help out.

If you have programs installed or even an operating system installed on the drive(s) and you want to preserve the install, disc cloning/mirroring is your best bet. See below

If you have at least one Western Digital brand hard drive in your computer, there's a free version of Acronis you can use HERE.

If not, you can use the freeware Clonezilla HERE
or the free version of Macrium Reflect HERE

If you intend to buy software, Acronis gets my vote.

brandonwh64 · Oct 17, 2011

I use acronis at work for our business machines and have no issues.

System Name	9th Level
Processor	AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
Motherboard	MSI X570 Carbon wifi
Cooling	EK Basic 360, x2 250mm, x1 140mm, x1 120mm fans.
Memory	32GB Corsair Vengeance 3200mhz.
Video Card(s)	EVGA RTX 3080 12GB FTW3
Storage	500gb ssd, 2tb ssd, 6tb HD.
Display(s)	MSI 27" Curved 1440p@165hz
Case	HAF 932
Power Supply	Corsair HX850W
Software	Windows 10 64bit

System Name	Money Hole
Processor	Core i7 970
Motherboard	Asus P6T6 WS Revolution
Cooling	Noctua UH-D14
Memory	2133Mhz 12GB (3x4GB) Mushkin 998991
Video Card(s)	Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290X
Storage	Samsung 1TB 850 Evo
Display(s)	3x Acer KG240A 144hz
Case	CM HAF 932
Audio Device(s)	ADI (onboard)
Power Supply	Enermax Revolution 85+ 1050w
Mouse	Logitech G602
Keyboard	Logitech G710+
Software	Windows 10 Professional x64

Processor	Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Motherboard	MSI MAG X570S Tomahawk Max WiFi
Cooling	EK Supremacy EVO Elite + EK D5 + EK 420 Rad, TT Toughfan 140x3, TT Toughfan 120x2, Arctic slim 120
Memory	32GB GSkill DDR4-3600 (F4-3600C16-8GVKC)
Video Card(s)	Gigabyte Radeon RX 7900XTX Gaming OC
Storage	WDBlack SN850X 4TB, Samsung 950Pro 512GB, Samsung 850EVO 500GB, 6TB WDRed, 36TB NAS, 8TB Lancache
Display(s)	Benq XL2730Z (1440P 144Hz, TN, Freesync) & 2x ASUS VE248
Case	Corsair Obsidian 750D
Audio Device(s)	Topping D50S + THX AAA 789, TH-X00 w/ V-Moda Boompro; 7Hz Timeless
Power Supply	Corsair HX1000i
Mouse	Sharkoon Fireglider optical
Keyboard	Corsair K95 RGB
Software	Windows 11 Pro

Whats the best way to copy all data from one hard drive to another?

Nick89

John Doe

Guest

mastrdrver

m4gicfour

brandonwh64

Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!