I have a 2012 Samsung Series 9 (NP900X3C) which has an i5-3317U

What getting an SSD will do is force you to start installing programs from scratch. This gives you the opportunity to be more careful about what is on your computer. ("Haven't installed much" doesn't mean it is isn't there.) Background processes are probably a big part of the sluggishness you're experiencing. The computer can just about handle everything right up until you open big or media-rich pages on Firefox.

Other points to consider:
1) Firefox has a shitty implementation of "one process per tab" called e10. Look up how to disable that garbage.
2) 4GB RAM will probably be enough, but find out how much of a pain it would be to upgrade to 8GB if you can.

I have a 2012 zenbook with 4GB and the same SSD and the SSD is absolute trash. 4GB is not enough these days, which means you'll have to rely on virtual memory and paging to disk. With the shitty U100, the system slows down significantly whenever there is any disk activity. Fuck, the U100 can't even sustain 30MB/s sequential write sometimes. I put a better SSD in it and it became much more usable.

>>61398398
>What getting an SSD will do is force you to start installing programs from scratch.
???

>>61398351

Have 7yo Toshiba with i3, 3gb ram, win10 and web works plenty fast.

Just reinstall OS and youll be good.

>>61399601
>With the shitty U100, the system slows down significantly whenever there is any disk activity
Like I said, I don't know shit about computers so this is probably a stupid question, but is there disk activity while I'm using Firefox to browse the internet? If so then it sounds like replacing the SSD will solve my problems

>>61399660

The guy is assuming the OS will be a fresh install on the new SSD, although most sane people would do a disk clone.

>>61400149

Typically firefox would only use the disk when it first launches. If all your ram is used up though, your system will start using the disk instead of ram, which is slow as fuck. You should be able to tell if this is the case if your HD activity light starts flashing heavily when you load any webpages.

>>61400205
>clone bloatware infested environment

Ty 4 trying.

Also:
>op is so incompetent he has to ask if a new ssd will be worth it
>he's gonna clone it (the right way)

No OP, a new SSD will do jack shit for your Problem. Reinstall Windows(or Linux) that should (maybe) fix it. The Hardware is more than good enough, you have a software problem.