April 10, 2009 by jim
How much faster is a Solid State Drive (SSD) than a hard drive when it comes to launching applications? This video shows about 20 applications being opened at one time on a Mac Pro Quad Nehalem 2.66. The first part of the video shows the stock Western Digital 7,200 RPM drive. The second part of the video shows an Intel X25-M 80GB SSD at the same task.
Just to see how it improved my MacBook (CoreDuo 1.83GHz with 2GB RAM), I put this SSD into it. It was like a different computer. I was amazed at how fast and responsive it became compared to running off a hard drive. I opened approximately twenty applications and was able to switch seamlessly between them, something that would have ground my MB to a halt if it was running with the HD.
80 GB is kind of small, but considering a notebook is not my main computer, I can get away with limited HD space. When needed I can also attached a portable hard drive. I've also contemplated adding an Optibay and the stock HD from the MacBook for more storage, but right now it's not an issue. For a couch surfing / road warrior machine I can make do with the >50GB remaining on the SSD.
