You guys have your act together and do advanced stuff
I'd be content pay for a program that doesn't use Homegroup and acts like Network Magic used to. = Easy Network setup..
I've spent too many hours transitioning from WHS 2011 to W10 update XXXXXXXXXXXXXX with Networks.
Sadly Network Magic is not available for W10 and in my opinion simple networking is beast in W10.
I wasn't sure how you were migrating, so I wanted to make sure that was covered.
As for restoring, you would need to boot from the install disk, and select the "repair an installation" option. This will load up the restore wizard. You do need to have your backup disk attached at this point (or prior to it).
However, you do need to make sure that the original partition/disk is smaller than the destination disk in question. That shouldn't be an issue. But if it is.... boot into the system, clear off the contents of the "data" partition on the system disk, then delete the partition (in diskmgmt.msc), and then manually run a backup (wbadmin.msc). Then you should be able to restore properly.
That's at least how I've done it in the past. I've actually migrated SBS2011E (the "small business" version of WHS2011) from a 500GB HDD to a 128GB SSD that way. So I do know it works.
Alternatively, you could close the "System Reserved" partition and the system partition to the new disk. Once you've verified that's bootable, delete said partitions on the HDD. This way, you can continue using that disk in the pool, and run for the SSD.
And I'm not sure what you mean by the last question. But it's definitely worth running the system from an SSD. If only for the fact that the dashboard will be a lot smoother and run better overall. And overall, the system will be "snappier".