Adding/Replacing my SATA boot drive with 2nd SSD faster Drive

[Isy11]

Hello, I am knew to HP notebooks and luckily by searching for answers today, I think i fetched the service manual for the 15-bs234wm unit I inherited and trying to improve its performance by first, upgrading it Ram to 8GB 'max' allowed - Done! and, since it's really didn't change much, thought to replace the existing 512gb SATA with a faster M.2 SSD drive. If I am not mistaken, I reckon that there's an empty slot (on top of the SATA drive), which can accommodate such upgrade? and, second question, which brand is recommended? {Samsung vs. Crucial}?

Most importantly, assuming I can install the SSD, I'll need to Clone the existing OS (win10 Pro) over. Which method (tool) cloning/ghosting/xcopying would you recommend? I have no issue wiping the old drive clean (*after the process*) so it would not have signature conflicts. I hope I made it clear and thanks in advance. 

-Isy 

[banhien]

@Isy11 

The specs of your machine is

            https://support.hp.com/au-en/document/c05987729

 You machine ONLY has  Intel® Pentium® Silver N5000 (1.1 GHz base frequency, up to 2.7 GHz burst frequency, 4 MB cache, 4 cores) CPU therefore it has SINGLE storage options and it has 500 GB 5400 rpm SATA now.

You can replace existing 2.5" mechanical HDD to a 2.5" SSD (500GB, 1TB or 2TB) from many drives around for example

          https://www.samsung.com/au/memory-storage/sata-ssd/870-evo-1tb-sata-3-2-5-ssd-mz-77e1t0bw/

Regards.

[Isy11]

Darn, can’t add only replace…then, the second part of my question is what’s the best way to transfer/ copy/ clone the OS and it’s all partitions over to new drive? 
thanks so much for clarifying!! 

[NomadMK15c · Accepted solution]

There are many videos on YouTube to show you how to clone your hard drive.

how to clone hdd to ssd - YouTube

You have an old laptop, so you do not need a high end SSD.

[Isy11]

yes, this unit was sitting for few years unused.. Not looking to invest heavily as long as I can get to boot up faster..

Your links helped especially where some pointed out free cloning tools, like Macrium, etc.. The big let down is that I can NOT utilize the old SATA storage. 

thanks!