So I got a new laptop at work, and based on some good data I wrangled the solid state drive instead of a conventional hard drive. I had to go on a file jihad to make space (down to 250GB, ug) but the results are astounding:

[caption id=”attachment_1152” align=”aligncenter” width=”178” caption=”Writing a 10G file”][/caption]

Y’know, for a laptop that’s nothing short of astonishing! Easily 3x the old drive. The read is even faster:

Note the 122.49MB/sec and almost zero CPU while doing so!

Wow. This is easily the most noticeable speedup since the days of the Celeron 300A. The 256GB drives are currently a $585 premium on the Apple store, and even at that I cannot recommend them strongly enough. Programs and data just snap now, even sluggish stuff like the Komodo IDE, ipython, Firefox and Photoshop.

Don’t wait for your next laptop, just buy an SSD for your current one and enjoy the ride.