Still trying to get unconfused about drives

Question

Coming from the Mac world and using a MBP and external storage, all this talk of drives, raids, etc. is making my head spin!
I know that I will be backing up extensively and can handle the downtime/risk of losing a days data (I'm compulsive about syncing my work on backups as I make progress), so I'm probably going to be avoiding raid since I will likely have 4 drives to start with.
I'm going to have 1 x Crucial M4 256gb SSD for OS/Programs and most likely (3x) seagate barracuda xt 2tb drives in addition.
So my first question is, should I be looking at also getting a small SSD for media cache/page files, or am I fine putting this onto a regular harddrive? If I do the latter, should the harddrive have a partition for the page files/cache to help with speed? How big are these files typically? Should I reserve the entire 2tb drive for them?
I've read through the disk guide, but being a newb to a lot of this I'm still trying to get my head around it.
So far I think I want:
1. SSD for os/programs
2. Drive for page files/media cache (what else goes on here?)
3. Drive for media/input
4. Drive for export
Which drive should my project files go on again?
Any help clarifying this is much appreciated! When everybody starts taking the math of throughput my head begins spinning still. I'm starting to gain a tiny bit of understanding, but I'm trying to still keep it really simple for myself right now, as I'm building my first workstation and this is only one of many technical concerns I'm currently wrapping my head around!

Answer 1

should the harddrive have a partition for the page files/cache to help with speed?
Partitions do not help speed. On the contrary, it reduces speed but increases wear and tear. Compare it to a large loft you have to store your stuff. You can easily walk around your loft and get the stuff you need. That is comparable to a non-partitioned disk. Now imagine that same loft, but partioned into two or more parts with a wall and a door to separate the parts. You have stuff stacked against the wall you need, so you get it, but instead of getting the other stuff you need just  1 foot behind it, you have to walk 12 feet over to the door, open it, walk 12 feet to the other stuff you need, return 12 feet to the door, close it and then go about your thing.  You have just walked 36 feet, where without those partitions 1 foot would have sufficed. Not very efficient, right? Same with partitioning your disk.
The basic thought on where to put what, is to distribute disk accesses across as many disks as you have. If you have a workflow where you export only a few times, or once when finished, then put your projects and exports together. Remember that SATA is half duplex, so you can only read at one time and write at another time. You can't do both at the same time. When exporting the project is already loaded, the media need to be read and written to the export disk.