new SSD for boot, add a partition for data?

[telequest]

I've got a 2010 hex core with system and home files on the stock 1TB drive, a RAID 0 (pair of 1TB WD Blacks), and a 2TB WD Green for Time Machine. I do additional backups via external drives.

I just got an OWC 120GB SSD which I'll put in the empty optical bay. I'm planning on using it for System, Library and Applications folders, with Home on the original 1TB mechanical. My main apps are Final Cut Studio and Adobe CS5 (mostly After Effects and Photoshop for graphics for video, as well as Flash for interactive projects). The main Library folder is bloated with a bunch of audio files and templates from the FCS and CS5 installs, but I plan to move them back to the mechanical and just leave symbolic links behind. So the SSD files above should total under 40GB, leaving about 80GB of spare.

Large video, audio and graphics files are on the RAID 0 when I'm working on them (they are always backed up elsewhere).

Here's my question: Would it make sense to use some of the SSD for my key work-in-progress files, i.e. the .fcp file for the Final Cut project I'm currently working on, or the .fla file for a Flash project, or the .aep file when I'm working in After Effects? These files usually are only a few MB in size, rarely more than 100MB ... so not even a Gig. But I need to be able to save them frequently as I work (often using "save as" so I have incremental versions).

If the SSD would be good for these files, would it be best to create a separate partition on the SSD (maybe 10-20GB), or would it be better just to have a folder in the same (single) partition as the boot and apps?

I realize that having a separate SSD for working data would be even better, but I'll already have every HD and optical bay full. Maybe I'll reconfigure eventually to allow a 2nd SSD, but for now trying to max performance with just the 1.

This may have been covered before - I searched and couldn't find an answer to this specific question. Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[Hellhammer]

Of course as SSD is much faster. It's useless to have an SSD and then use only 1/3 of it, especially if you can take advantage of the extra space

 

[telequest]

Of course as SSD is much faster. It's useless to have an SSD and then use only 1/3 of it, especially if you can take advantage of the extra space

Thanks, that's what I'm trying to do. So I guess the question is do I partition the SSD into 2 parts, one for the system/apps and the other for my working data - or just use it unpartitioned?

And if partitioning, how much spare room should the boot part have? I have the impression (but not much knowledge) that the boot part of the drive needs some amount of spare space for (?? swap files and other stuff I don't know much about).

So how about this:
80 GB partition for boot and apps (40GB of files, 40GB spare)
40 GB partition for working data.

Or just one big happy 120GB unpartitioned SSD for both?

 

[Hellhammer]

I don't think there is need to partition it. It's easier if you don't do that since you don't have to worry about do you have enough on the OS partition.

 

[300D]

Partitioning a HD is because the outside diameter of the drive is faster. An SSD is the same speed everywhere so partitioning is pointless.