SSDs weren't a thing gen years ago and may not be a thing in ten years. This is not eternal fundamental knowledge. The important thing is that registers are way faster than on chip cache which is way faster than ... insert levels of indirection ... which is way faster than ... insert levels of remoteness. Even registers vs on chip cache may not be around that long (probably will for a good long time though).
What's actually surprising is that it might be faster to pull data from elsewhere in a data center than your own SSD. I recall John Carmack saying he could ping a server in Europe faster than he could get a pixel onto a display (triple buffered updates at 120fps iirc)
This stuff is more "good to show you know it (in the screening call)". It reads like a collection of shibboleths which signal "yes hello I am computer person".
I honestly think that we don't champion domain specific knowledge enough in software development, there's so many different aspects of software development nowadays and you just can't be expected to be an expert in all of it.
"It is crucial for programmers to understand how long a certain operation takes in and out of a computer."
Google interview question "how much time it takes to Read 4K randomly from SSD".... You are hired now go fix this css colour of www.whatever.com/about. :D
I would prefer its a "good to know" but not really that crucial unless you create code which operate on such a low level.