Should I replace my old PC or upgrade it with an SSD?

Iain has an unusably slow desktop. Will a 300 upgrade revive it, or should he put the money towards a new machine?

I have a Dell an all-in-one desktop PC from 2012. It has become painfully slow. It takes so long to boot up and run Google Chrome, Microsoft Office and Apple iTunes that it's almost useless. (It also does photo and video storage, accounts and school work.)

A local computer business will upgrade the hard drive to an SSD, and clone it so I don't have to reinstall everything, for about 300. According to them, this should give it an extra year or two of life. I like the style of this machine, and discarding it would be a waste if it still worked fine. However, the poor performance is critical and I am worried the hard drive will die and I'll lose everything.

Your worry filled me with dread. Hard drives are increasingly likely to fail after five years of use. Every PC should be backed up, and you should have multiple copies of irreplaceable data. If you don't, please buy a USB external hard drive as soon as possible and back up both your PC and your data - photos, music, documents, accounts etc.