Hey guys, will my system be faster when I only use a SSD for installing the OS + applications (premiere, aftereffects, ...) and then only using external disks connected via esata for storing videos, projects, etc.

If you're talking about effectively replacing your C drive with SSD, the answer is that it should. By going with SSD you will eliminate the relatively time intensive activities known as seek and rotational latency from the data acquisition equation. "Seek" is the physical movement of the drive head over the track containing the desired data. "Rotational latency" is the time spent waiting for the platter to spin the data under the head.

I haven't been tracking the world of SSD very closely for many years so there might be a down side of going with that approach that I am not aware of. Hopefully others can chime in on that front.

The only potential gotcha here with SSD is random writes. Because of the way flash memory has to erase and write multiple blocks at a time SSD can struggle a bit with random writes.

Good thing is that much of our data is being recorded sequentially so we dont' get hit with slower performance.

The next generation of SSD are coming that exceed 200MBps throughput in sequential reads and 160MBps in sequential writes. Check out the Intel X-25-m and X-25-e for the current SSD champ. And check out the OCZ Vertex SSD for next gen.

We'll all be using SSD for our boot drives in a few years. Unlike hard drives NAND memory follows moores laws because it's silicon. So today's 80GB drive is tomorrows 160GB and then 320, 640 and so on.

Estimated speeds for SSD in 2011 will exceed 300MBps with controllers supporting 400Mbps. You can't buy that speed in a HDD today nor will you in a couple of years.

I have this OCZ 120g one:

Newegg.com - OCZ Solid Series OCZSSD2-1SLD120G 2.5" 120GB SATA II Solid State Disk (SSD) - Solid State Disks (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227374)

on my Thinkpad X61 and while I think it helps with power consumption, I don't notice a big difference and a few things seem to be a bit slower. For instance, I've noticed an odd problem with Excel where some things I do hesitate a bit now. Like they're having to load a DLL and its taking longer to do it than before. Also I use Paintshop Pro quite a bit and I've noticed it hesitate on some functions as well. Again, perhaps loading some function or plugin to do an operation causes an annoying pause. Also, the write speed can be slower too on saving files. Definitely waiting for the next generation to come and also come down in price as well.

Welcome to AnandTech.com [ Article: The SSD Anthology: Understanding SSDs and New Drives from OCZ] (http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3531)

These are getting good enough, and fast enough, to replace Raid0 setups.

But you must use the better ones. The cheapest will have problems.