Few upgrades can breathe new life into an old laptop like an SSD. Solid-state drives have no moving parts, instead relying on the same kind of flash memory used in USB thumb drives. That makes them significantly faster than traditional hard drives. They also consume less power, good news for laptop users looking to squeeze extra runtime from aging batteries.
The flipside is that SSDs have a higher cost-per-megabyte than regular drives. If your primary upgrade goal is to increase your available storage, you’re definitely better off with the latter. But if you can get by with, say, 128GB or 256GB, you’re in for big boost in boot speed, overall performance, and battery life.
You’ll want to shop around, but you can routinely find 120GB SSDs for around $120, with 256GB models selling in the $200 range. Make sure the interface (usually SATA III) is compatible with your laptop, and look for drives that come as part of a kit. These often include transfer software for moving everything from your old drive to the new one, plus an external drive enclosure so you can continue to use the old drive for extra storage.
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