swap hard drive for solid state drive

If you have no background information with this I suggest you start with the upgrade information on the macsales.com web site. You do not have to buy from them but for what you want to do it will require a greater degree of familiarity with specifications.

"Best" is also vague. Best for what? How much room do you need? What operating system version will you run? How much can you afford? I use a late 2008 MacBook and decided for the the best SSD for me was not a SSD at all.

In addition to OWC (macsales) I can recommend Crucial SSDs based on my personal experience and a few other veteran contributors on these forums.

I would avoid Samsung at this time. There have been some problems with them reported in these forums (as well as successes) and Samsung does not indicate Mac compatibility on their web site.

Since you have an older MBP, the SSD will not perform at its maximum capability due to the fact that your MBP has SATA2 connectivity. However there still will be a substantial performance increase vs. a conventional HDD.

Ciao.

Some of the OWC SSDs may be somewhat model specific. I was entertaining the idea of buying one from them for my 2008 MacBook but unlike a HDD which can be put into almost any computer in which it will fit the SSDs they have are designed for optimal use for specific bus speeds (I know, tech-talk). The bottom line was, if I bought one for my MacBook and then next year buy a slightly newer model I may end up having to buy a different SSD rather than transferring the old one to a newer computer. Additionally I want 1TB storage and SSDs are still pretty pricey for that capacity (hundreds of $ vs. $80).