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The plan originally was to ditch my current laptop, Alienware M11x R3 for something a little more recent with a better build quality. Even though my Alienware is an amazing workhorse for the type of work I do (with a very high spec), I started to get annoyed with the common issue these laptop's have: screen touching the keyboard when closed.

I wanted to get an Apple MacBook Pro Retina. But that got thrown completely out the window when I decided to go on the path of getting a property! Eek! So I had to make do with what I currently have on a very modest budget.

As of late, I started noticing that my laptop was getting very sluggish and kept freezing every so often. This continued even after carrying a full factory format to give my Operating System a fresh install. The only thing I could amount this to was that my hard drive was on its way out.

Luckily for me, at the same time, Amazon had some great offers in their computer components section and managed to get a Crucial 480GB Solid State Drive at a price that was an absolute steal!

I've heard online and from a few friends of mine that once you go SSD, you definitely won't go back...and this truly is the case. I wasn't expecting to see so much of a performance increase. My laptop has never performed this well.

At the same time, I decided to upgrade my current Operating System to Windows 8. I was getting a little bored of Windows 7. Plus, I quite like the new tiles interface. Very pretty! I don't understand the complaints or negativity. Some are obviously scared of change...but that's for a future blog post.

Here are a few things I've noticed since my upgrade:

• Boot times have minimised substantially.
• My laptop always used to feel very warm during long-term usage. Now it always feels cool.
• I'm sure battery times have improved.
• Virtual Machines load in seconds, rather than minutes.

Upgrading to a SSD is a very cheap and easy way to get more out of your machine. Highly recommended!