Let's take a quick look at a step-by-step guide detailing how to turn an SSD into a boot drive for your new or existing computer.

Use these free software to create an exact copy of bootable flash USB drive or Clone one USB drive to another USB. Useful to create multiple copies.

Then you can mount your old disk somewhere, mount your new disk somewhere else, and use either tar or rsync to duplicate the old content onto the new drive.

In those cases, your best bet is to clone your hard drive, creating an exact copy you can swap in and boot up right away.

If you're thinking of upgrading your Windows hard drive and moving to a faster SSD or NVMe SSD then you need to read our guide on cloning Windows.

Check this guide and learn how to effectively clone your HDD onto a new SSD. Enjoy the fast bootups and quick launch apps from the SSD.

The problem, however, is that it doesn't create a true clone of the drive, since you'd still have to reinstall the Windows bootloader using a repair CD if you wanted to boot into your cloned drive.

If you need to migrate your data or are looking to keep a backup handy, you can clone your hard drive. Here's how to do it in Windows and on a Mac.