If you purchased a new hard drive for your laptop, what is the best current way to transfer your old drive, OS, files, etc. to the new drive?

A question that isn’t fluff, aren’t you happy? This might actually benefit several people if not more. I am sure there have been times people wanted to upgrade their machine but think they don’t want to lose everything or have to go through the tedious copy, swap, and plant the files into the new drive from the old, or reinstall programs. What is the best current way to virtually clone your drive and install it on the new drive and have it all work seamlessly, cost methods as well as free?