I second this. Grap a cheap 256GB SSD, use that HDD as external storage device. Your mother will hug you tighter for this :)
Background:
Been using my laptop for 6 years to this point, and thought it was the installed programs and content size that slowed my laptop.
Then I heard somewhere that SSD have gotten cheaper. So I gathered the courage to look on my local stores, and found Lexar NS100 1TB for $72.
After swapping the HDD with this SSD, installed nixos on it, laptop went from taking 2 and a half minutes to start to 15 seconds! And it was consistent every time.
Not only that, but opening apps (libre office suite) went from taking 30 seconds to just 3!
SSD gave a new breath to my somewhat old laptop.
PS: RAM is just as important, And it’s often overlooked. Anything less that 8GB nowadays is not recommended (browsers have been known to use more RAM than expected. To me, tab suspenders where not an option, since to revisit the suspended tab means the browser had to load the page all over again, few seconds delay) 16GB is the sweet spot IMO.