Will Using SSD and HDD be slower than using an SSD alone?

[Undeaddude43]

I recently built a computer and I used a hard drive I had from the previous pc.
It is giving me very slow startup times and it is very slow to respond after waking up from sleep.

I decided I wanted an ssd to boost my pc's performance, but I don't want to spend $200 on one, so I'm choosing to buy a 128gb ssd and installing it along with my current hard drive for the storage.

I'm looking at this ssd: http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX100-2-5-Inch-Internal-C...

So, just like the title says, is this a good Idea? Will it be slower because I am going to use an old hard drive?

Will only the programs that I store on my ssd benefit with speed or does my whole computer run faster?

Thanks

 

[USAFRet]

The OS and applications that live on the SSD will be faster.
Things that live on the HDD will be the same speed as on any HDD.

However, for a 120+GB SSD, you can probably install most/all of your applications, apart from games.
I have a 120GB SSD as my primary drive, and it holds the OS and ALL applications.

The things that really take up space are games, and music/video/pics...

 

[SBMfromLA]

Hello... Let me give you an example of how I have my system setup. My O/S (Drive C SSD) has my browser, MS Office, Drivers and Hardware/Printer/Mouse Software, and all my media players on it. My Next drive (Drive D) I install all my games and the rest of my programs onto it. I also have a third drive (Drive E).. a big 3TB drive.. I use to keep my Drive C Image backup on.. as well as a backup of my documents, and I relocated my Music, Videos, and Downloads onto it.. and have archived backups of programs I downloaded as well as any ebooks and PDF/User Manuals.

Having it setup like that... I end up only using about 60GB of my 240GB SSD... and when I make backups of drive C.. that usually takes less than 5 min... since it doesn't have to copy all my media files..

As for speed.. documents and media files aren't going to really see any increase in speed from an SSD.. only the program that's used to open them up... Also, in the event of a File System crash... I really won't lose any data... and when I need to reinstall Windows... I don't have as many programs to install since a bulk of them are already installed on Drive D...

One thing you have to remember, though, is... when you install a program... most have data inside hidden folders like AppData or ProgramData.. so it would be a good idea to make period backups of those folders so if you ever need to reinstall a fresh copy of windows.. you can just copy over the data to help ensure your programs installed on a different drive will still work. I hope I'm not confusing you.