Add more drive capacity to MacBook Pro an optimize for performance

FFish

Registered
I have a MacBook Pro (MacBookPro6,1) that came with a 500GB Seagate 7200rpm disk (ST9500420ASG)
Having already maxed out the RAM to 8GB now I want to:

1. optimize drives for performance
2. add more capacity
3. a backup plan

I decided to ditch the optical drive and bought the
OWC Data Doubler and the 1TB WD Scorpio Blue 5400rpm disk (WD10JPVT)

Now I start to realize that the important thing is to separate the "BOOT" drive from the "MEDIA" drive.
To make the Boot drive fast I will have to replace the 500GB Seagate disk with an SSD drive.
I was thinking the 128GB Crucial m4 SSD (CT128M4SSD2)

So in my MBP I will have:
"BOOT" 128GB SSD + "MEDIA" 1TB WD
I do photography and video.
I could maybe partition the "MEDIA" drive into 2x 500GB "PHOTOS" + "VIDEOS"

As backup I have 3 disks:
- 500GB Seagate 7200rpm - original MBP disk
- 500GB Samsung 5400rpm I use as backup until now
- 160GB Seagate 7200rpm disk from an older MBP (maybe use this to backup the SSD Boot disk?)
I connect these drives via Firewire 800 in an enclosure.
Later could decide to get a 2TB Time Capsule to do the backups automatically and wireless.

--
What do you think? Is this a good plan?
Should I partition the MEDIA drive? I think the "VIDEOS" part will eventually become bigger than the "PHOTOS"..

Anything performance wise I should be aware of?
For example I have been doing some reading about moving the Home Folder and the Sleepimage out of the Boot drive.
Do I have to make a special partition for this on my "MEDIA" drive?

I want to optimize this machine for Adobe CS6 Apps like Lightroom, Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere Pro.
A lot of these Apps write cache files in username/Library/Application Support/Adobe folders.
Do I need a "scratch disk" as well? Where could I make it and how big?
A disk for cache needs to be fast.. but I guess the 1TB WD 5400rpm is not ideal..
Should I get a bigger SD drive than?
 
Bear in mind when partitioning that not all parts of the disk yield the same speeds. Iirc, the beginning of the disk is faster because the disk spins faster at the edges. Some performance-minded people will even "throw away" large parts of their disk, using only the first half or so, in order to use the fattest part only and reduce seek time.

I'm not an expert on this subject, so I'd recommend looking it up.

Also, this does not apply to ssds, of course. I think keeping your home folder on the boot ssd is perfectly fine.
 
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