How do I copy to a new internal hard drive?

Factual Questions
1

I would like to buy a much larger internal hard drive.
How do I image my old hard drive onto the new one?
Would it be better to install the new drive as a secondary storage drive? Is there instructions somewhere for this.

Thanks

2

Is this for a desktop? What system/OS? On Windows desktops, if you can install both drives at once, the new hard drive probably comes with a utilities CD to make an image on the new drive. When I did this a few years ago, I just booted from the CD, clicked a few times and let the utility make the copy. This was back when you had to set master/slave jumpers, so it’s out-of-date info, but I suspect it’s even simpler now. Best part was, I could try booting from the new drive while the old one was unchanged, so it was zero risk.

If you can’t install both at once, say for a laptop, it’s more complicated.

If the new drive isn’t a lot faster, then yeah, you can just install the new one as new storage, and leave the OS where it is.

3

If you really want to move everything to the new drive and scrap the old one, the keyword to search for is “migration”, as in “data migration” or “hard disk migration”. There are lots of companies out there that make data migration software; last time I did it, I used a free trial version of Acronis Migrate Easy. Worked like a champ, kept all the old settings intact, didn’t have to tweak a thing.