Dell XPS 15 9550 Upgrade options?

[glitchmaster0001]

It's been a while since I've come back to the forums, but I recently picked up a used Dell XPS 15 9550 parts laptop for DIRT cheap. By dirt cheap i mean $35 cheap. However, It's currently missing a Hard Drive/SSD, RAM, Battery, Power Adapter, and screws for the back cover. I just borrowed my friend's AC adapter and got the laptop to post and boot. It seems that everything is working fine on the laptop, so now I'm at a dilemma as to how to restore/rebuild it. The laptop currently has the i7 6700HQ CPU, GTX 960m graphics, and the 1080p matte display. I plan on using this computer strictly for school and professional work. Gaming would be little to basically none. 

 

My workload would consist of using Adobe Premier Pro, Photoshop, and Lightroom. I will also be using VMware to run a macOS and Linux virtual machine, along with the basic tasks such as MS Office, web browsing, etc. 

 

So here's my question. What would be the best upgrade course that I can do to my "new" laptop given the workload?

 

1. Would I be better off with 16GB of ram or 32GB? 

 

2. Should I opt to get an NVMe M.2 SSD, or would I be fine with a SATA M.2 SSD? How big should the SSD be?

 

3. Would the 97 WHr batteries from the newer XPS 15s work in the 9550? Or would I be better off using the 84 WHr 3rd party replacement batteries you find on eBay or Amazon?