Yes, most advertisements for notebooks are quick to point out the capacious size of the hard drives that come with a notebook, all the better to store those photos and legally obtained videos, of course. But size isn't everything. Especially when it comes to SSDs, the make and model of the drive is a huge factor in its performance.

Want to know who makes your hard drive? Open the Control Panel, select Device Manager, and then choose “Disk Drives.” Not only will it show the name of the company, but it will also give you the model number of your drive, which you can Google to see whether or not it's a dud.

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