Can someone explain the SSD option to me?

[St. Germain]

I assume that the OS runs off of the SSD in the systems with two drives? Is it really that much of an advantage? It is three times the cost of going from the i5 to the i7 for instance...is it worth that much of a premium?

 

[iShater]

An SSD doesn't have moving parts like a regular HD, so the read speeds are significantly faster. So the boot process and other I/O intensive tasks are done match faster, speeding the overall system.

I haven't checked the two drive setup, but most likely the SSD would be the boot drive (and VM drive too).

Edit: I see you added more questions. The value of a speed increase is how much YOU value it.