[kelnos]

Last year I pulled an old Mac Mini out of mothballs, installed Linux on it, and started getting really frustrated with it slowing down and temporarily freezing all the time (not even a GUI, just the console, and web pages it was serving). I realized it seemed to be I/O related, and replaced the HDD with a SSD, and the problems just magically disappeared. Was shocked at the contrast; it had been so long since I'd used something on spinning rust. Even Raspberry Pis with ok-ish SD cards were more responsive.

Replacing a HDD with a SSD, as well as adding RAM, can do so much for performance, without even thinking about the CPU or GPU.