Not sure if you've gotten an answer yet... (Score 1)

I've seen many people offering their experience, which is good, but this is spinning off into a variety of arguments. As far as I can understand, the original question was: Are SSDs suitable for development?

I would say the most important thing to remember in this case is: you get what you pay for. And in this case, the cost-benefit analysis may not be worth it over, say a regular 10k or 15k rpm disk (or array), or perhaps a nifty "hybrid SSD" like the one in the MSI netbook? It's (usually) a 2.5" SATA disk with a smaller SSD "buffer" - giving better IOPS with less of a price hike (and write issues).

If you are ok with paying on the order of $600+ for a single drive, check out DRAM Flash technologies - doesn't get much faster than using memory as disk! But realistically, I'd say stick with fast (and cheap) regular disks for now - maybe store some frequently read, but not often edited files on a small test SSD to try it out first.

And if you do decide to invest in some sort of SSD or hybrid, I would recommend going with one that uses either Samsung or Intel chips.