Debating if I want to chase a very slight performance increase

I am debating if I want to chase a slight performance increase on my HP 8460p Elitebook by replacing the 320gb 7200 rpm hdd with a previous generation 160gb ssd. That would involve reinstalling everything including all programs that I have installed and probably installing Windows 10 pro since my Windows 7 pro disk is missing at the moment. I have spoken to 3 computer people including the tech I bought the laptop from and he is also the person that has the 160gb ssd. they all seem to think to maybe gain 1-3 seconds overall performance increase it isnt worth it especially since the laptop boots in about 45 seconds the way it is set up now. I upgraded the memory to 6gb from 4gb and was talking to him about the ssd drive when he said he doesnt think that a slight performance gain that would involve 4-5 hours of work is worth it when the computer already has a 6.3 WEI. Just wondering what others think. The laptop is very fast and stable now but my friend has one that loads web pages 1/2 second faster which can be annoying.

had someone tell me stability is more important than lightning fast

I think that you where not well advised.
You have no idea what a SSD can do for the overall performance.
- A SSD is more than 6 times faster than a HDD.
- It is shock proof.
- It consumes less power so battery lasts longer.

You don't need to reinstall Win 7
Buy a new 256G SSD (or a 512G) and clone your HDD into the SSD.
I have one of these. So far so good.
PNY CS1311 2.5 SSD7CS1311-240-RB - Newegg.com

Buy a USB enclosure to put the SSD to clone. Afterwords, use to enclosure the HDD to make the backups.
external case, 2.5, Hard Drive Enclosures, Hard Drives, Components - Newegg.com

as far as the WEI score, dont think it will go up any since the graphics are rated at 6.3

In my experience the upgrade of an SSD was well worth it. The performance gain was more than slight. It was substantial. Boot time was less than half than with the conventional drive and application startup times much better. An SSD is superior to a conventional drive in every way, except cost. A big plus in a laptop is the superior resistance to mechanical shock. Many a conventional drive has been damaged by what was thought to be a minor fall.

Also understand that my computer is rather older than yours and supports only SATA II thus preventing the drive from reaching it's full potential.

Brian60077 said:

my friend has one that loads web pages 1/2 second faster which can be annoying.

Plug your cpu (i5 2410M ?) and his into this page:

Compare Cpus

and you'll see why web pages load faster on his.