A few months ago I bought a brand new laptop. This is better than Christmas morning for a computer nerd. Right away, I took it out of its box, plugged it in, and turned it on. I walked through the Windows setup wizard, uninstalled programs I didn’t want, and installed the programs I did want.

Ahh, this is the moment where most people can breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy their new laptop. Not me. Nope, instead I time how long it takes to boot up. From the time the manufacturers logo disappears to the time windows prompts me to login: 55 seconds.

I rush over to our parts cabinet, grab a new 7200rpm laptop drive (the one shipped with my laptop was only 5400rpm). I grab my new laptop, and start unscrewing…yes, it’s only a couple of hours old and I’m taking it apart. Hey, I’m a professional.

I copy the 4-hour old drive (which is a little over a day in dog-years) onto the new drive, slap it in the new computer, boot up a few times to make sure Windows likes it then grab the stopwatch: 33 Seconds. A 40% improvement on speed.

This improvement doesn’t just improve the time it takes to load windows, but all other program. As well as little tasks like replying to email, checking the weather, and balancing your checkbook in Quicken.

Oh, and btw, this upgrade helps any computer that's more than a year old just because a new drive is ALWAYS faster than an old one.