Size of SSDs for Photoshop CS5, LR3, Windows 7

Question

Looking at configurations to build a new desktop,  I've been reading so many articles on using SSDs for PS CS5 that I'm now confused.
    I'd like to use one drive for OS & programs and a 2nd for a PS scratch disk.  I'm looking at 80GB or 120GB to fit my budget.  Will either of these sizes be suitable for the two drives. I've noticed that Intel just dropped their prices today and added the 120GB drive. 
    I would like to use WD hard drives for a storage drive and another for a  working drive (4 internal drives total) as the computer functions for family Internet, too.  Now, I store my main Lightroom catalogs and photos on an external drive so I can move them between my desktop and laptop.  My PS interests usually lie in collages of 6-8 photos (layers) and stringing photos together for landscapes.  Lightroom does a lot of my editing adjustments other than that.  I'm looking at 8MB of RAM for now, again for the budget.
    What do you suggest?

Answer 1

Ok, SSD's and photoshop...
there are a lot of differnet ways to handle this question none of them are easier then the other ..
I just did this like a month  ago and here is what i did. *** note** Now i am not suggesting you follow my steps, but you can do something similar at a much lower price range
I have an OCZ RevoDrive 110 gig SSD as my primary os drive and program files directory.
second drive set is a pair of 10krpm 300gb raptor drives striped for a 600 gd data drive.
I have a 2x 2TB hard drives that are my archives but i keep them off line.
Now here is where it gets complicated.
You want to write to your SSD as little as possable for longevity of the drives mostly. so first thing is you want no swapper, no automatic defragmentation and several other SSD spacific settings like hibernation etc, if you have been doing the research you already know all this.
Now i took that and went a step even further and this is not something you would want to do unless you are extreeeemly confortable with playing around with OS configurations.
I during the OS build set all my user directories, program data, set the swapper to the Physical data hard drive set as well as the PS scratch disk, Internet caches etc..
This make it so that my primary boot and program files drive never gets written to unless there is an update or i am installing something.
The second Physical drive handles all the changing data. User profiles, personal settings, desktop, etc.
This does a number of things for me, everything launches and runs extreemly quickly it takes seconds for boot to dektop apps launch with out hesitation. It alows me to use a smaller SSD to house all my applications and OS while not restricting my ammount of data i can keep on my desktop or documents folders.
I have only used 35 gigs out of the 110 gig ssd installing all my apps and os including several very large games.
If i had to do it again i would do it exactly the same way.
Now, if you are not so confident in your OS skills and simply want an SSD for the extreme speed it will provide you.  I would still suggest only using a single SSD and use a second physical drive.
Several reasons, its a heck of a lot cheaper.
Place your scatch disk, your OS swapper file (ssd does not need a swapper file but unless you have an ungodly ammount of memory you should always have one some place), temp directories and internet explorer cache locations onto the physical drive. Also to store your data on it.
SSD are too expensive to use for data storage or swapper/scratch drives at this point and it does not buy you anything speed wise using it as cache or temp folders. additionally when you are simply storing images you don't need that extreemly quick you will not see a noticable difference opening a photo on physical hd or SSD its just not that much data.
One last thing, unless your in an extreem rush, i would wait 6 months.  with SATA 3 and USB-3 coming around and already showing on most new motherboards, newer faster SSD's and physical drives will be making their way to the market pretty quick.