I have both in the larger of my 2 servers which runs virtual machines.
Here are some numbers from an OS-provided benchmark app taken during idle:
A single SATA Kingston E-series SSD can do this:
BUFFERED READS: 198.52 MB/sec
AVERAGE SEEK TIME: 0.26 ms
FSYNCS/SECOND: 1867.56
And with 6x 7200rpm SATA RAID10 on a PERC 6/i controller they do this:
BUFFERED READS: 315.17 MB/sec
AVERAGE SEEK TIME: 7.18 ms
FSYNCS/SECOND: 2439.31
The SSD is still relatively new to me, less than 6 months.
The OS is installed to the SSD & I don't notice much difference in it, but a firewall VM loads & saves large rulesets in what feels like less than half the time as when it lives on the RAID datastore.
I opted for SLC for the sake of performance, and chose a Kingston-branded Intel device for support.
As soon as they arrived I started on documenting a maintenance schedule & found that firmware wasn't available or even mentioned on their site.
Kingston took >4 weeks to provide details on it, so the next one I got was the Intel X25-E, and their self-serve support beats Kingston's marketing jive support hands-down.
I have Dell support, when hit the fan I learned it matters. With that, I'll second Bart's suggestion regarding Applecare.
EDIT:
IMHO, if an SSD is the route you take, don't bother wasting money on a large, lower-end one. Save up & get the quickest you can and put it to work on the apps that really benefit from it. Space is relatively easy to come by, but those kind of seek times aren't.
What are you doing with the server?? developing??? – Arenstar – 2010-11-16T03:16:56.700
OCZ Real SSD? That's a Crucial. OCZ Makes Vertex, RevoDrive, IBIS, etc. – Mircea Chirea – 2010-11-16T05:27:08.233