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Clone to a Bigger SSD and Actually Use the Extra Space

You bought a bigger drive because the old one is full. Clone it with the defaults and you get the same full partition sitting on a much larger disk, with the rest unallocated. The upgrade quietly did not happen.

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Get the tool

Macrium Reflect will do this.

https://www.macrium.com/

The free edition is now a trial, so you sign up with an email to get it.

After signing up, open your account page and find the registration code.

You need that code plus the email you signed up with when the application asks on first run.

That step catches people out, because the download alone is not enough to get it running.

The trial runs 30 days.

Select the whole source drive

Open Reflect and find your current drive.

Tick every partition on it.

Not just the big one. The small boot and recovery partitions are what make the clone bootable.

Click Clone this disk.

Pick the target and fix the layout

Click to select a disk and choose the new drive.

Stop here. This is the step the whole guide is about.

Open Copy partitions and choose shrink or extend to fill the target.

Without it, the partitions are copied at their existing sizes and the remainder of the new drive is left unallocated.

Check the data partition actually grew before you click through. The dialog shows you the new size. In this example the last partition went from 57GB to 930GB. If the number next to your main partition still looks like the old drive, the option did not apply and cloning now just wastes an hour. Read it, then continue.

Click next, then next, then finish.

Confirm and let it run.

Swap the drives

Shut the machine down when the clone finishes.

Unplug the old drive.

Boot.

Pulling the old drive matters. Leaving both in means two disks carrying the same identifiers, and which one Windows boots from is not something you want to leave to chance.