I've been thinking of fitting an SSD to my desktop PC, but on reflection, I'm not too fussed about boot speed and I wonder if there's much benefit once the machine is running if there's plenty of RAM ?

plenty of speed increase- buy the intel G2…..job done.
one of the biggest improvements to my desktop and laptop

The speed increase from a FAST SSD is noticeable all around, especially big programs/games loading. Got one on the Macbook Pro which was initially bought with a 5400rpm normal hard drive. Day and night difference really. Not sure if the cost does justifies it though. I mean my laptop came with 160GB and I bought a 128GB which was still 200£.

SSD Can really cut the load times of all your programmes and the operating system, so yes it can be worth it.

BUT… They're expensive! And they're not very big yet. Best bet is to use an SSD for the OS and any applications, and store all data on a "normal" HDD. OK, goes against the ethos of having all your data stored safely, but you'll notice the performance improvement the most this way anyway.

Besides, you're probably backing data up already if it's important. Though any REALLY important data could of course be installed onto the SSD too.

Keen to try it myself in the future (sorry I don't speak from personal experience, just theory) as I've heard it can halve the load time of an OS and any applications.

vrapan, you're comparing a slow drive with SSD there though, a higher density, higher RPM hard drive would close the gap a lot.

Think it's maybe still a wee bit early for these, only a matter of time but they're still improving hand over fist going by reviews, and prices are still dropping, so probably patience is the best idea. I just stopped buying Custom PC largely because of stuff like this, watching them wet themselves over a 2 second reduction in boot time 😛

I have experience of 7200rpm laptop drives. Noticeably faster than the 5400rpm one but not in the magnitude of the SSD.