Upgrading HDD with an SSD and cloning original HDD

Hi there guys.

I was wondering if you could help me with a new project that I'm about to undertake.

I am upgrading my laptop with 2x new hard disks.
1 x SSD (500 GB) & 1x HDD (1 TB, hybrid drive)

What I would like to do is:
Use the new SSD for both OS's, (Windows 7 and Linux)
Use the new HDD as a shared data drive (for both OS's)

So I was thinking of doing this:
1. Clone my (current) sda, HDD onto my new SSD (Shrinking down the Windows partition)
2. New install of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
3. Using the new 1 TB, HDD as my shared data drive.

I was going to use clonezilla to perform this task. But I was wondering what is the best way to go about
doing this.

1. Is it best to do a straightforward bit by bit copy (of the sda drive) ?
2. Create an image file, then install that ?
3. Can I resize my partitions afterwards ?
4. Is there anything else that I am missing or that I need to take into consideration ?

Thanks in advance for any help or advice


Useful information -

Current setup:
01. SDA: (320 GB)
sda1: (100MB) [Actual boot partiton]
sda2: (267 GB) [Label is called "BOOT" but is the C: drive] - Running Windows 7
sda3: (30 GB) [Recovery partition]
sda4: (1 GB) [Diag]

02. SDB: (500 GB)
sdb1: (100 GB) /root [Ubuntu 14.04 LTS]
sdb2: (366 GB) extended partition
sdb5: (50 GB) /home
sdb6: (4 GB) /swap
sdb7: (310 GB) Shared data partition (in NTFS)


New (inteded setup)
SDA: (500GB, SSD)
Windows 7 (200 GB, approx)
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (300 GB, approx)

SDB: (1TB HDD)
Shared data partition (between both Windows 7 & Linux) set as NTFS

If your cloning from a hd to ssd then you will need to change a lot of settings Optimize Windows for SSDs - Thomas-Krenn-Wiki