Asus x55v SSD upgrade: weekend project

Today we put an ssd into an older laptop and see the real world benefits to adding an ssd to your system

Get 20% off curious+ and support us make videos
to save

Intro inspiration: Official™ Designs, recreated in after effects
Intro track: Distrion & Electro-Light - Rubik [NCS Release]

[Robertsson]

Hi, great video! I have the same laptop and I just did this without watching your video. Question: did you also do a processor upgrade to this laptop?

[TheBuzzawak]

Hi CPU modder, I was hoping to get some advice. I have a X55vd laptop with a i3-3110M @ 2.4Ghz. Can you recommend a upgrafe CPU that will fit ?

[amateurwizard]

great vid what would you recommend I use to clone to a smaller drive bx100 250 gb

[SensoryAlterations]

So was there something wrong with the old hard drive?
If there was something wrong with the old one then just swapping it with a new mechanical hard drive would make it faster?

I want to fix a mates laptop but they're on a budget and need 1tb of space, so they can't afford $500 for a 1tb ssd. They use it for productivity(word processing, microsoft pub, etc) and a few mild/not intensive games(aoe mostly), they have 4gb ram, which seems fine to me(doesn't appear to use mote than that in task manager). It has an i7, so that's not a problem.
I've recommended they get a smaller ssd, say 256gb and use an external usb3 hard drive for files.  But we all know that is a pain,
So would a higher quality/new mechanical hard drive be faster than the old one? Or should I tell them to invest more money for a greater gain?