I am planning a new workstation build for Sonar X2 (audio) and Sony Vegas Movie Studio (video).  The Gigabyte motherboard I’ve chosen accepts an mSATA SSD used with Intel Smart Response Technology.  A writer on a Tom’s Hardware forum posted, “SRT…cannot accelerate things like compressed files (videos, music, anything already compressed).”
 
 QUESTION #1: If this is true, would I be better off within my editing HDD configuration using two WD Velociraptors in a RAID 0 than using an mSATA SSD with a single velociraptor using Intel SRT?
 
QUESTION #2: Is there an advantage having WIN 7 O.S. installed on its own smaller SSD with all application software (Sonar, Vegas, Virtual Instruments, Virtual Processors, etc.) installed on a separate larger SSD?  Would this increase the life span of either SSD or increase performance?

Thank you.

do NOT waste your money on a cache drive useless

the right way

OS drive and programs
Audio record/can also store your video but do NOT fill your drive past 65% i would use a different drive for video
samples drive if you are using real sample libraries not synths loops

only the sample drive will show performance as an SSD and then again only if using real and heavy samples..

SSD as an OS is nice but will have NO preformance effect on audio or video..

raiding 2 raptors? maybe when you upgrade to the real vegas and use heavier video codecs..
then the correct way is

media drive in raid 0 or better
Video Export Drive in raid 0 or better.

thats 4 drives minimum..

Thank you, Scott for your insight.  Let me explain the purpose of this post.  

My goal is to maximize the number of audio tracks I can record within this DAW.  I'll include a quote from the Glyphtech website, under the Audio Applications tab, "The rotational speed of the platters directly affects the number of audio tracks you can achieve on a single drive...Faster spindle speeds yield more audio tracks with more edits."  If I interpret this correctly, on the low end if I use one 5,400 rpm hard drive for recording, I will severely limit the number of potential tracks available.  On the high end if I use two 10,000 rpm drives in RAID 0, I should have plenty of tracks available.  Isn't this the concept?


For the video side, I am very much aware that using Movie Studio instead of Vegas Pro will not place as much demand on the workstation.  I should have no problems there.


Thanks again for any and all knowledge you can pass along.


Rob

Theoretically, you're correct I think.

But with the increased spindle speeds come increased noise & increased heat.

7,200RPM is a good happy medium.