SSD vs 7200RPM Hard Drive - Upgrading Laptop for multiple VMs

Hi There,

I'm looking at upgrading my laptop hard drive in the next few days and I'm after some help / suggestions. My main use for my laptop is for my virtualisation subjects at TAFE. I won't be using it for much else.

It's an MSI FX600 - 12GB or RAM with a Core i5 processer, it currently has a 120GB SanDisk SSD.

I'm just wondering which will be better in terms of overall performance - a 256GB SSD or a high-end 7200RPM drive?

I'm aware that SSDs are great for initial loading, but will I see any noticeable performance increases or speeds whilst running multiple Virtual Machines? These will be Windows 7 / Windows XP / Windows Server 2008 R2

Thanks in advance!

Mike