Hard Drives/Solid State Drives: We've talked about this a lot before, but it's worth repeating: Upgrading to a solid state drive (SSD) is one of the best upgrades you can make in terms of general speed boosts. An SSD can speed up your boot time and the launching of applications, though it isn't going to encode video any faster or make your games run more smoothly (though they will load faster). An SSD won't make web sites load any faster, and it isn't really worth it if you only use a few applications. It's especially great for those using slow-launching programs (again, like Photoshop) or launching many applications at once. Upgrading your regular hard drive to a more spacious hard drive (that is, a non-SSD) will only help your speed if you're regularly running out of space.