M14x R2 Minor Issues & Upgrades

Hey everyone, im new to this board and saw that it was the most comprehensive and knowledgable so i figured id join to grab some help and advice from you all. So i purchased the M14x R2 a couple of months ago and Ive ben wanting to do some upgrades and fix some issues im having trouble with. Im also looking for some recommendations. Im running Windows 7 Home Premium that came with the laptop btw.

1. First off, Im looking for 2 upgrades to the ram and storage. For RAM, I was thinking about going full out on 16gb which I plan on going with some g.skill ram probably. But now for stoarge, thats my main issue. Im looking into getting msata for the OS and do a clean install and such. Anyone have any recommendations? It seems that not everything is compatible and some people are having issues with their msata ssds. Im looking for something inexpensive like the Crucial m550 256gb msata drive. Anyone have any better advice on what to go with?

2. Second off, Im wondering what BIOS version you guys are running? I have Bitdefender installed and it sucks up a lot of memory it seems, around 200-250k. Also, I have that svchost.exe process that runs at like ~150k which im sure its needed. Because of this, the fan is running loud sometimes and the laptop gets hot as well. When I got the laptop back in march, I completely took it apart, dusted it, and replaced the thermal paste on the cpu and gpu. Will just a RAM upgrade fix this? Either way, which BIOS should I be running? A14 or A08 as i have noticed that there were 2 versions posted up online.

Thanks so much for your help guys!