How much “newer” are we talking, here? :-)
I think I understand what you are saying, but, then how did my several other clonings to SSDs from HDDs or smaller SSD’s on my other Win 10 machines work just fine?
And why do the 1st 2 small EFI partitions seem to clone just fine?
And why do the 1st 2 small EFI partitions seem to clone just fine?
One possible reason your cloning operation is not completing successfully is that the EFI partition is not being cloned successfully and your software is shutting down after this and not giving you appropriate error messages.
As far as why it worked on your other Windows 10 machines... Older hardware that run Windows 10 fine do not necessarily have all the latest security "enhancements". This transition did not take place all at one time, so it is hard to say when various hardware manufacturers made various changes. Most of the changes have likely taken place within the last 5 or so years.
On most newer hardware the computer can recognize only one EFI/UEFI partition at a time. It is hidden so that you typically need a tool made for handling partitions to look at what is in it. When you try to clone this partition while it is active the results can be unpredictable.
One way to get around this is make a bootable USB drive using a free tool like Hyren’s Boot CD.
https://www.hirensbootcd.org/.
At that point type “advanced startup” without the quotes into your Windows search box. Open the app and choose to restart under the advanced startup heading. At that point you can get into your bios settings to make sure that the computer can boot from USB using legacy settings, disable Secure Boot and change your boot order. You might then have to restart Windows 10 and go back to advanced startup before you can boot into the Hyren’s Boot CD USB drive you have made.
At that point you should be able to successfully clone the drive or partitions using one of the free tools included on the Hyren’s Boot CD PE Drive. Jumping through all of these hoops is a pain in the butt done in the name of security. And sometimes depending on how your system is setup Windows will change your UEFI/BIOS settings during this process on its own. Which can be both mystifying and frustrating at the same time. After successfully cloning you should then go back to advanced startup and reset the settings in BIOS back to what they were.
Oh, and you may or may not be able to get into BIOS/UEFI to change settings and boot order using function keys and not bothering to go through advanced startup.
The other solution of course is to use external devices made for cloning that have connectors that allow you to connect various types of hard drives, SSDs, SD Cards, USB drives etc. and clone them without being as limited by your computer hardware.
Here are a few devices that I own that are used for this type of purpose. Some USB3 Hubs can also work fine if you have appropriate enclosures:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MVRS38Q
I should add that the reason using a tool on the Hyren’s Boot CD will probably work is that the EFI partition that you are trying to clone would not be active when you booted from a USB drive.
But the other thing that I should have mentioned is that a newer version of the software you have been using is likely to work or some of the other software suggested here is also likely to work. This might cost you a little bit, but might save you a lot of frustration.
Oh, also... the error message you are getting, “Clone Failed - - VerifyFileSystem Failed.” is likely the appropriate message you should get when the EFI/UEFI partition has not been cloned correctly.