Best performance out of mSATA + SSD?

So I was playing around with some configs in my head and am looking at a Clevo P150EM for my next build, which features an mSATA slot.

I am completely new to mSATA and the closest I get to SSD is my Momentus, which I THINK has 8GB of NAND on it. (500GB model, 465GB usable)

I am thinking of having an SSD in this next build, which means that I will be rocking an SSD in the primary SATA III slot and a hard drive caddy to replace the ODD with a 1TB traditional HD. I believe the mSATA port is SATA II, and right now in my head, it is unused. Obviously, SATA III is faster... but would it make sense to throw an OS install onto an mSATA SSD, then use a 2.5" SSD for program access at SATA III speeds? I'm thinking the other way around: OS on SATA III, but then what would you use the mSATA port for if you have sufficient room on your 2.5" SSD and don't want to be bottle-necked by SATA II? (I just read an article on Tom's Hardware saying there's no real-time difference between SATA II and III right now, but I figured if I have the SATA III slot, might as well use it for OS and progs, right?)

Just to take advantage of the mSATA slot, I'm thinking a 256GB SSD as a SATA III primary, 1TB as a secondary in the ODD bay (because I almost never use optical), then possibly use a cheap mSATA SSD for Adobe scratch disks (like 16GB). Waste of money? Thoughts? (Read into using an mSATA SSD as cache and apparently that was useful back when SSDs were much more expensive and the performance of an mSATA SSD cache actually helped out.)

This machine will be used for higher-end gaming, occasional Adobe Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects, and the usual casual stuff, It will be configured with an i7-3610QM, 16GB DDR3, and an NVIDIA 675MX, so plenty of power.

 

SSD's always go on SATA III. The mSata SSD should act as a caching drive for the HDD - which is not exactly meant to run on SATA III - making it feel like an SSD. SATA II will run up to 300mb/s I believe, so don't worry about that. Put the HDD on the SATA II with the mSata caching it, and bam.

However, an mSata on a storage drive is a waste IMO. If you were using an HDD as primary drive, I'd recommend a 32GB mSata at minimum, and more if you have extra cash. Save your money and forget the mSata if you're only going to use the HDD for storage.

Grab a 256GB or 512GB SSD and you will be set. The crucial m4 512GB SSD is like $369, which is great.

 

It'll probably be a waste of money to set it up as you proposed--I challenge you to notice the performance difference between a SATA III mSATA SSD (say, the Crucial M4) in a SATA II slot and the same SSD in a SATA III slot. I would stick with a dual-drive setup, with perhaps a large 256GB mSATA SSD for OS and programs + a 1 TB HDD for data storage.

Are you sure the mSATA SSD is a SATA II slot though? This was the case with the Thinkpad X220, but the X230's mSATA slot was bumped up to SATA III.

If you later realize that you're doing a lot of seriously-heavy image or video work that would benefit from a temp directory on a separate SSD, you could always add it down the road.