If I were in that situation, one thing I'd consider trying.... get 2 USB pendrives, one to put a Live/Installer distro on (Devuan, or AntiX being the two friendliest of my likely candidate distros (or VoidLinux, Artix or Gentoo if feeling a little more bold)), and a bigger one to install the distro to, just like it's a HD or SSD, to see if "everything works". Then can decide from there if wanting to just carry on from there living like that, or, move to the main SSD.

M$ Windoze gets slower by the day, by design. Just one of many anti-features abusing the user used. Planned obsolescence, actively engaged, to encourage you that you need to buy the new version, and new hardware. Stick a GNU+Linux or a BSD on it, and then surprisingly the hardware's nippy again, for over a decade more, sparing your kindeys.