I bought the OCZ Vertex 30GB as part of an experiment. I do a lot of audio editing (concert recordings, typically 1+ hours of 96kHz 24-bit = 2.5GB typical) and because of the size of the files I work with, I am often limited by harddrive speed.
I used the SSHD to master the last concert recording I worked on. Overall, I'd peg the drive at about 3x faster than my 1TB Seagate. Note that this is NOT a benchmark result, but a stop-watch style comparison of some common operations. Nor can I compare other SSHDs--I was also seriously considering the Intel SSHD, but I could get away with a small capacity, due to how I use the SSHD, so OCZ had a much better, lower-risk price point.
For smaller files (e.g. 215MB), the results are even better, but that also becomes a function of how much RAM I have (4GB--3.25GB usable). There are also many audio editing operations that are CPU bound (e.g. noise reduction), so these are not practically faster.
System specs: Intel Core 2 Quad 9350, 4GB RAM, 3 SATA Hard Drives, 1 SSHD, Vista.
BOTTOM LINE: These are fast, and if the performance gain saves you time in a way that pays for the product, go for it. My conclusion was that the cheap 30GB would pay for itself pretty quickly (and was low-risk), but a RAID of 2 or 3 160GB SSHDs would not (i.e. high cost / high risk). I also saved money by using this drive only for the stuff I'm actively working on--when done, I transfer back to my 1TB hard drive and delete the files from the OCZ. I'm also counting on SSHDs getting faster and cheaper a year from now. So if you're not sure, wait.
