Does anyone have any experience using r/python with data stored in Solid State Drives. If you are doing mostly reads, in theory this should significantly improve the load times of large datasets. I want to find out if this is true and if it is worth investing in SSDs for improving the IO rates in data intensive applications.
The read and write times for SSDs are significantly higher than standard 7200 RPM disks (it's still worth it with a 10k RPM disk, not sure how much of an improvement it is over a 15k). So, yes, you'd get much faster times on data access.
The performance improvement is undeniable. Then, it's a question of economics. 2TB 7200 RPM disks are $170 a piece, and 100GB SSDS cost $210. So if you have a lot of data, you may run into a problem.
If you read/write a lot of data, get an SSD. If the application is CPU intensive, however, you'd benefit much more from getting a better processor.
Data analysis using R/python and SSDs