Partition SSD for OS and other stuff?

[highcountryrider]

Just got a Samsung 830 256GB SSD. I'm going to do a fresh install of Win 7 64-bit on this drive. Also will put a few programs like Photoshop, Pinnacle Studio (video editing), MS Office, iTunes and a couple of others on this drive. Most of my other programs and all my other data will go on a WD Caviar Black 500GB SATA3 HDD.

Should I make 2 partitions, one for Windows and the other for programs on the SSD? If so, how large do I need to make the OS partition to allow for all it's updates and functions? Also, I have read that SSDs like to have some unallocated space at the end of a partition(s) for better garbage collection/TRIM management. etc. I think about 10% of the drive's size was recommended for these functions so that would be about 25 GB, correct? Do I really need to do this?

Any advice on partitioning would be appreciated as this is my first SSD and I would like to get the best performance plus maximum space usage out of the drive. My current XP Q6600 system has the OS and all programs and data on a single 320GB HDD but I'm only using about 95GB of it's space for all of the above.

TIA for responses!

System :
Silverstone Temjin TJ08B-E micro ATX case
ASRock Z77 Extreme 4-M micro ATX MB
Intel i5 3570K CPU
Samsung 830 256GB SATA 3 SSD
WD Caviar Black 7200 RPM 64MB cache 500GB SATA 3 HDD
8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 low profile RAM
Corsair VX550W PSU - bought a couple of years ago but have never used. Plenty of power for my needs.
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU cooler
DVD drive from old system
Might add a discrete GPU card later but plan on using the i5 3570K's built-in Intel 4000 graphics for now.

 

[highcountryrider]

Also, I have read that SSDs like to have some unallocated space at the end of a partition(s) for better garbage collection/TRIM management. etc. I think about 10% of the drive's size was recommended for these functions so that would be about 25 GB, correct? Do I really need to do this?

Man, this is really confusing! Samsung (along with other SSD manufacturers) evidently ship the 830 wiith 7% of the drive already not available as it has been allocated to provisioning. When installing Win 7 I could set up a C (OS) partition and a D (programs) partition and size D so that there is non-allocated space at the end of the partition of about 8GB.

Other posts on these forums have stated that when using the Samsung Magician utility for over-provisioning it will show that current OP is 0. That seems to me that whether I set up 1 or 2 partitions, if I leave about 8 - 10GB unallocated space at the end, then my total provisioning space would be close to 10%

Does any of this make any sense? Should I set up two partitions when installing Win 7, using the full amount available to me on the drive, then use the Samsung utility to shrink the partition(s) for over provisioning purposes? Still would like opinions on whether to set up 2 partitions on the drive to begin with.

I'm an old dude who has managed to sort of keep up with the ever changing technology in computing but it is starting to get beyond my grasp

Appreciate any help!