Upgrading from HDD to SSD is very simple using Apple computers, because you can easily swap the hard drive and download the OS as soon as you turn on the computer. The process start by simply holding CMD + R and then connecting to the internet. The OS will be downloaded, and then you can restore using the backed up hard drive. The process is much trickier with Windows, and you need a third party software to do so. The best software is AOMEI Partition Assistant, and it is extremely easy to use. All you need is to download and install AOMEI Partition Assistant on your computer. Then do the following
1- Connect your SSD via Sata to USB cable
2- Open AOMEI Partition Assistant
3- Make sure that the SSD doesn’t have any data or partitions. If there are partitions and data delete them
4- Choose Migrate OS to SSD and Choose Target Disk if the source is less than 2 partitions. If more than 2 partitions then Clone Disk and use Sector by Sector which will clone it identically.
5- Make sure you check mark optimize SSD if it is available
6- Click Finish then Apply to start the migrating process.
7- Swap the hard drives and turn the PC On and it should work.
8- If it doesn’t work then go to the BIOS settings when you turn on the PC (The key depends on your PC mostly it is F10) and make sure the boot order for SSD to be the very first and turn on Legacy Mode.
9- If Windows isn’t loading correctly, then do Windows Startup Repair
10- Once everything works correctly then open Aomei and click on the Unallocated space if there is any merge it with the hard drive main storage. Then click Apply and your should have larger storage by now. If again Windows doesn’t load correctly then do another Windows Startup repair and that should be it.
Note: If the target disk is less space than the source data (Example moving from 1TB of data to 256GB Hard Drive) then just the operating system will transfer. If the target disk is equal or larger than the source Data, the whole data will be moved and it will be an identical of your old PC, but much faster.