"Cloning" a non-boot drive, what's best?

GoogalyMoogaly · Saturday at 20:32

So I've got a HDD in my PC that's mostly used for data storage (Downloads and "My Documents" type stuff) although in my wisdom I did install things like Steam on those drive (although any game I feel would benefit from it goes on an SSD).
I'm thinking it might be nice to swap to an SSD and give myself a bit more (physical) space in the case and maybe lighten it a little (will actually be removing 2 3.5" HDDs and the HDD rack).

So as per my title, the question is what's the best way to copy the data over from the HDD to the SSD, considering that it's not a boot drive?
Do I just ctrl+c and ctrl+v it?
Should I use Acronis or something similar (any suggestion on a free tool?) to clone the drive?
Is there a tool that sorta does ctrl+c and ctrl+v but better?

There's about 600GB to move so it's not gonna be quick, but I'm looking for the easiest and fastest way.

Thanks.

Nemiyen · Saturday at 20:50

Clonezilla is one of the best free tools to clone a drive but it sounds like just a simple copy and paste will suffice. Just set it up, get it going and come back in about 6 to 8 hours or so.

Woolly_ · Saturday at 20:54

I have just done copy and paste in the past. There were some important files so I checked these had copied correctly and kept the old drive just in case.

I guess the speed is hardware limited anyway and using a specific program wouldn't make it quicker

Snapshot · Sunday at 08:40

You could use Robocopy which can multi-thread but I'm not sure that's really an advantage with HDDs as it causes a lot of head movement. Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V is probably easiest.