I've got a few computers running Windows Server 2008, none of them using SSDs.
I switched to W7 when the Beta was released and so I've never really used R2 as an OS except for in VMs and on one of my laptops.

The server editions are quite nice once you get them tuned for workstation usage.

I noticed Tilt mentioned that one should disable the Defender while doing tests, did you try that as well?