If it's in the budget go SSD.

Don't know if this qualifies as 'cheapish' but

Mushkin Enhanced ECO2 2.5" 1TB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MKNSSDEC1TB
on sale today at NewEgg for $249
I have these in 2 of my family's PCs and have had zero issues.
 
edit: just noticed that you're in the UK...

Both boot and program loading times are substantially faster on an SSD. No moving parts, so no noise. Anything on it will access quickly.

An SSHD typically has only 8GB of "SSD" which will primarily affect only the boot speed. The remainder is a traditional mechanical HDD (moving parts, slower access, more noise).

The above does imply better suitability of a drive (any will work), but the differences in characteristics.

Thanks for the comments all, think I'll probably go for an SSD drive although the NVME drives look good I'm not sure my board has a spare slot for one but will have to take a peek as there isn't much price difference between a 500GB SSD and the same size NVME drive.
 
 
Steve

Only downside of SSDs is failure. I have had two fail on me in five years. No warning, no symptoms, you just switch on one day and your drive has vanished - game over. Robust backup (think CrashPlan cloud-based real time sync) is essential to avoid data loss. That said I wouldn't switch back to mechanical from choice as SSD reliability continues to improve.

AndyB01
Only downside of SSDs is failure. I have had two fail on me in five years. No warning, no symptoms, you just switch on one day and your drive has vanished - game over. Robust backup (think CrashPlan cloud-based real time sync) is essential to avoid data loss. That said I wouldn't switch back to mechanical from choice as SSD reliability continues to improve.

Was either of those failed SSDs a Samsung?

abacab
Was either of those failed SSDs a Samsung?

Yes - but we're talking a few years ago - not a recent model

I have always used a UPS power backup.  Have had almost no hardware failures in over 15 years, except one portable hard drive, a few GPU's and a few CD-DVD/RW drives.  My motherboards, HDDs, and power supplies have always seemed to outlive their usefulness.
 
So power and heat (plus EMI or solar flares - you need to build a faraday cage for that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage) are probably the biggest threats.  Always use a top quality power supply, good case fans and cooling setup.  I really believe a good UPS keeps the power input cleaner to the PC power supply.  No spikes or surges, etc. should benefit in longer component life.
 
Of course if you buy circuit boards with crappy capacitors, you get what you pay for.  I've replaced boards for friends that have expired due to leaking, bulging, capacitors.  Always buy quality components!

Yup, laptop has a built-in battery backup ...
 
Heat and vibration, or drops, are probably the laptops biggest challenges.

DrLumen
+1 for the UPS!
 
Naturally, I can't point to anything as proof but it seems I have had a lot less trouble with my systems since using them. Likewise, with other gear while using a whole home surge suppressor. I have to hope (maybe foolishly) that it has saved something.

I worked with an enterprise network support team for years, and it was no coincidence that our major data centers that were protected with whole building UPS rarely had power surge related issues,  while our remote offices had frequent outages, and damaged gear, during summer thunderstorm season...

BRuys
 
As others have said, SSDs can fail suddenly with no warning, so backups are essential.

I have Macrium Reflect Free scheduled to image my SSD daily.
 
$50 for a USB3 portable external drive to write the image backups ...  Peace of mind, priceless!!! 

All that in spite of a UPS and whole home surge suppressor?  Wow!
 
I know that a sometimes overlooked path for a hit is the phone or cable system wiring. 
 
I have a friend whose motherboard was fried during a nearby lightning strike that came in over his network cabling into his NIC.  In that case, using a WiFi NIC could have saved his bacon!