Upgrading Laptop Drive, 7200RPM HDD, or SSD?

[Hunted98]

I have an Acer laptop, and have become mystified with it poor performance. It has an i5 processor(2.6Ghz),6GB of decent RAM, but I am beginning to think that my 500GB 5200RPM Hard Drive is the real bottleneck. My disk usage rarely drops below 100%(in task manager), so i am looking into replacements. What is more worth it, a 1TB 7200RPM HDD, or a 250GB SSD? My personal research has turned up so many mixed reviews I want a little more guidance in the decision.
Thanks for the help!

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

256GB SSD

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $99.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-01 15:23 EST-0500

 

[ronintexas]

A 128/256GB SSD is worth it's weight in gold.....and you can buy a USB enclosure to use your HDD....so the best of both worlds.

 

[giantbucket]

what he said. way snappier performance and will use less battery power as well.

 

[velo3100]

Depends on the amount of programs you use. SSDs are generally preferred as they have quick boot times for programs but their space is less and they cost more. But hard drives generally have more space but are slower due to the moving parts.