thought I lost my ssd but usb stick prevented pc from finding os

I copied some files on to the usb stick and forgot to take it with me. I powered down the pc. come back from work and powered pc up and it says it cant find an operating system. I thought there was a power outage and that fried the ssd but then realized it would have fried the whole pc. I though maybe cable was bad or bios battery needed to be reset. waking up after an afternoon nap, it came to me and I remembered the usb stick. took it out powered it up and g2g

now that was a warning sign to make copy my c: drive to another ssd. so I got one. but they are not the same mfr.

whats the right way to clone the drive completely to the new ssd?

I do have a usb case (3.5" drive but will also work with 2.5") which should help?

if this ssd goes mia, I can just swap the cloned drive.

my other concern is the drive goes in another year and since then changes have been made to c: ..is there a backup program that can incrementally backup just the changes?

thanbks in advance