I've been successful cloning the SD card. I use Macrium Reflect and have 2 SD card drives. I put an original Samsung drive in one and clone to a new SD card in the second. The size of the drive doesn't seem to matter much; the last ones I did were SanDisk MicroSD 32GB (with the SD Adapter). Once you clone it'll be the same size as the original. I've used these already in 2 systems where the original SD card failed.

I clone it with the software still on it and then replace the software later with whatever version I require. Use whatever SD card is the least expensive as you'll lose the extra space after the clone.