How to switch SSDs ?

[wickedpoison]

So this is kind of a long convoluted story.. I'll try my best.
I just built my computer a month ago and to get it going I only got a 250GB SSD drive. This SSD#1 contains all my monitoring apps, OS, driver softwares, most frequently played games.. you know.. the essentials. I just got a 1TB HDD drive and installed it last night.
Somewhere along the line, it wasn't booting correctly (from SSD#1) and kept asking me to insert installation media. So of course my first step was to make sure everything was plugged in correctly. I thought that maybe when I disconnected and reconnected the SSD#1 to do cable management, that maybe I didn't plug it in all the way. Well I went to lightly-but-forcefully push the cord into the SSD to make sure it was in there and it immediately bent at a 90 degree angle, breaking a bit of internal structure and I thought I had completely broken it [que panic attack].
Well I was able to bend it back, hook everything up correctly, accidentally fix whatever setting in BIOS that got automatically changed when installing the 1TB HDD and it is now working as normal with a properly formatted HDD without any re-installation.
NOW I'm buying a more reputable brand SSD (SSD#2) (of the same 250GB size) to clone/replace SSD#1 to SSD#2 because I'm sure I got lucky with the SSD#1 still working after I'm pretty sure it's broken or about to be.
How would I accomplish cloning this without messing up settings or having to reinstall anything? Is that even possible? I've read threads like this before but they're all upgrading their storage size and I'm just staying the same.
I'm a total noob. Every time something happens I spend hours troubleshooting and just kind of accidentally fix things so if someone could explain or link a page explaining it like I'm five, that'd be ideal. If not, I'll try my best to keep up.
Also, I do want to include that I am planning on getting an external hard drive to back things up on, but I don't know when and I want to replace the SSD first to decrease the risk of any electrical shorting that could happen because the SSD has a broken bit in it.

Below is link to my build with SSD#1 (crucial) SSD#2 (WD) and HDD (WD) included.

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/damnitangel/saved/pVxV6h

I plan on doing cloning using the website below, but I'm wondering if it will work since the SSD is the same storage space (also note, I have not used up all the space yet). And is there anything else I should know before disconnecting SSD#1 and attempting to boot off SSD#2? Besides maybe having to specifically tell BIOS boot off new SSD?
https://www.backup-utility.com/features/disk-clone.html

 

[jay32267]

This should be pretty straight forward.

Get some cloning software. I use Aomei Backupper. It's free and easy. Many people use Macrium. Use whatever you want.

Power down....remove the HDD....connect the new SSD.

Power up...booting from the old SSD.

Clone the old SSD to the new SSD. This should be even easier if they are the same size because you don't need to change partition sizes.

Power down.

Remove the old SSD. Power up. Go to BIOS. Set it to boot from the new SSD.

It should boot from the new SSD.

Now you can power down and add the HDD back.