Ways to reduce lag..?

I'm kind of surprised that no one suggests that the OP look into the possibility of getting and installing a larger SSD in their laptop. They've actually come down in price quite nicely the last couple of years or so, and 128GB/117GB is really way too small to be tolerable in the long run.

I have 2 laptops with SSD's that are 256GB in size, and it's enough trouble managing them. Anything smaller than that, a 128GB SSD for example, would drive me bonkers in no time.