Good old times. My first Smartphone was the HTC Desire Z. Loved it :)

Or if you want to use the new drive, clone your drive to the new one(using clonezilla for example)

https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm This is a nice overview

I dont use root anymore. My daily driver is a Pixel 6 with GrapheneOS which works out of the box really well for me.

I allways symlink(ln -s) some folders from my HDD(Pictures, Movies, Documents, Music) since i dont want to have all my home folder on my slow HDD. May this is an Option for you.

I will allways go for used Thinkpads. Best value