Cloning a larger hard drive to a smaller ssd

1. Download/install the Casper Trial Edition disk-cloning program from https://www.fssdev.com/products/casper/trial/

2. Before undertaking the disk-cloning operation close all open programs. (Generally you need not disable your anti-virus program). Ensure your destination drive - the proposed recipient of the clone - is properly connected in the system.

3. Double-click on the Casper 8.0 icon to open the program.

4. Click "Choose other options", then "Copy Drive" on the following window.

5. On the next window click "Perform a different copy".

6. The next window will list the drives connected in your system. The source (C:\) drive (the drive you will be cloning) will be highlighted. Click Next.

7. The next window will list your proposed destination disk - the recipient of the clone. If you have more than one potential destination disk currently connected in your system they will be listed as well. Ensure the disk you want to serve as the destination disk is highlighted. Click Next.

8. If the destination disk contains data the next window will indicate a warning that this data will be lost as a result of the disk-cloning operation. Click Next.

9. The next window gives the user an option to assign a name to the destination disk for future Casper disk-cloning operations involving that disk. If no name is desired uncheck the box. Click Next.

10. The next window reflects how the cloned data will be distributed on the destination disk. The default proportionate distribution option will suffice in nearly every case. Click Next.

11. A message will appear indicating that this Casper Trial Edition does not support "volume resizing" - basically user manipulation of partitions on the destination disk. This feature is available on the Casper commercial version. Click Continue.

12. On the final user screen click "Perform the copy now".

13. Exit from the program after receiving message that the disk-cloning operation was successful.

14. The Trial Edition has a restriction that the user should be aware of which is best described using your situation as an example. In your situation you indicated your source drive is a 1 TB SSHD, however you did not indicate the total amount of data contained on that drive. We'll assume it's considerably less than the disk-space capacity of your proposed 960 GB SSD that is to serve as the destination disk.

Using round numbers, let's say the total data residing on your source disk is 700 GB. The disk-cloning operation will create a partition on the destination drive equal to the source drive's disk-space, i.e., 1 TB. The entire contents of the source drive will be cloned and reside in the 960 GB disk-space of your destination drive.

Another example...say a user's 500 GB source disk contains 320 GB of data and the destination disk is a 1 TB HDD. The program will, of course, clone the 320 GB, however it will create a 500 GB HDD (rounded numbers) partition on the 1 TB destination HDD to contain all that data. The remaining space on the 1 TB HDD will be unallocated. Obviously there's no practical negative implication in this scenario since it's a simple - maybe 5 second - process for the user to utilize Disk Management to extend the created 500 GB partition to encompass the entire disk space of the 1 TB destination drive. But I wanted to make clear that "restriction" of Casper's Trial Edition. In any event the commercial version does *not* contain that restriction - the program will (by default) create a partition incorporating all the destination drive's disk space containing the cloned data. Casper's commercial version also has a user option available during the disk-cloning process to create whatever partition size the user desires as long as it's large enough to contain the cloned contents from the source drive.

15. There should be no problem with the program cloning the "backup partitions" of your source disk over to the destination disk.

16. Please note the initial cloning operation will take substantially longer than future disk-cloning operations (for comprehensive backups) involving the same source & destination. disks. When Casper is used routinely & frequently for comprehensive backups of one's system the program's disk-cloning speed is terrific. So be patient during this initial disk-cloning operation.