Okay, so you already know that adding memory/RAM is the #1 best and cheapest upgrade for your computer. But what if you've already done that?

How about replacing that hard drive with a SSD (solid-state drive) or hybrid drive?

SSDs are starting to show up in computers (think Apple's MacBook Air) and they are blazing fast. For example, the MacBook Air, in spite of its 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo processor - slow by today's standards - comes with an SSD drive - it opens applications instantly, shuts down in 2 seconds, starts in 10 seconds, etc. So SSD drives can greatly speed up a computer. The problem is that they're expensive compared to other hard drives.

Enter hybrid drives. They pair a traditional hard drive with an SSD for added performance.

Seagate has come out with their Momentus line of hybrid hard drives. I just got the 500 GB version for my MacBook, and it has made a huge difference. Applications launch faster, the system feels more responsive, even virtual machines (using VMWare's Fusion) run faster.

This 7,200 rpm drive comes with a  4 GB SSD drive built-in for caching, and it outperforms 10,000 rpm drives. So by replacing the stock 5,400 rpm drive with this hybrid drive, I have gotten a serious speed boost.

I connected the new drive using a USB-SATA adapter, formatted it using Disk Utility, ran Super Duper! to clone my drive, shut down, replaced the drive and booted up and am back in operation.  No re-installation of Mac OS X or complex migration of accounts, data, apps. Very easy, although it did take 10 hours to clone the drive!

Next, I plan to remove the built-in DVD drive and replace it with an SSD to run Mac OS X and applications, and use the hybrid drive for document data storage. Who uses discs anymore these days? I can always use an external DVD writer for those times.

So if you think your old computer or laptop can't get a speed boost - think again!