So after getting tired of hearing my Macbook HD click and clack and make me nervous it was about to fail, I found some very good pricing on the Crucial MX100 512GB SSD and decided to take the plunge. The process was fairly simple, so here is what I did in case anyone is considering the upgrade:

1. bought the SSD, tiny screwdriver with torq pieces, and external USB disk caddy to host the SSD temporarily

2. put the SSD into the caddy, connected it to the Mac, allowed it initialize and did a format using the Mac extended journal

3. using Carbon Copy Cloner, I cloned the old drive to the SSD, then rebooted and did a refresh clone to catch any missed files, then using the Option key, booted to the external SSD to make sure it was ready

4. the physical swap was easy - lots of online tutorials and videos are available and it took me under 10 minutes

5. after the swap, booted normally although the boot time was not any faster with the SSD (my Macbook was never a fast boot) - but file access and overall performance seems much faster.

The only casualty from the exchange was Google Drive - the app can't seem to find and link to the local folder, although it's still there on the system - I guess I can log out and back in to reset the connection.

The MX100 series seems to have some very solid reviews, and offers a price point much lower than similar SSDs. Outside of the cloning process, I don't think the entire swap took more than 30 minutes and I'm far from a techie person.