Strange delay

I get those freezes on Windows XP at work all the time and they are very frustrating. I have an old G4 Mac Mini at home and I don't remember any delay opening the Documents folder. One thing to try is to copy and paste the entire folder to a new location. Then see if you experience the delay in the new location. On windows, there are many things that go on when you open a folder. On OSX there is a lot less of this monkey business but there are still a few things to look out for. See if there are any .ds_store files and if there are delete them. They will get recreated but the delay might be gone. Another thing to consider is the view you have set. I prefer list view. If the OS is busy building thumbnails a folder will open slowly whether it's Windows, OS X or Linux. The best remedy is to keep files in a folder underneath documents. Have the bare minimum files in Documents, a dozen perhaps. Then keep the rest in sub folders. There should be no delay whatsoever in opening the Documents folder from now on.

Replacing a hard drive that is only half full is overkill. I don't think I'd bother till you have 20-25% space left. Unlike Windows, OS X is stable with 0 free space and your hands aren't tied to delete things to free up space. So wait on that new hard drive till you are lower on space and then migrate.