I've got a softmodded PS2 with free mcboot and the mechacon chip thinks it's a dev unit. Its got a 1TB hard drive full of PS2 games and a binder full of burnt PS1 discs
From the hard drive it actually loads faster even on a physical hard drive. On an SSD it is even better and completely silent, however I have had little problem with noise from the HDD. As for the disc thing it is better for PS2 games as it doesn't wear out the laser. For PS1 I use cds so it boots into the PS1 CPU because I think OPL uses POPstarter to emulate PS1. As is the fat PS2s use the PS1 CPU for I/O so the only part it emulates is the graphics chip.
I've got a similar setup. No ps1 discs though. I use popstarter which is great for some games but the ones I want to play... never seem to work right. In terms of my ps2 collection, I sometimes struggle to decide what to play.
I'm currently using the PS2 I got back at launch as my daily driver, but I'm very wary of capacitors going bad and the laser getting tired, so I'm in the market for another system without as much sentimental value to run an SSD in and possibly reshell. I've got freemcboot on my system atm but without an internal hard drive the USB speeds are woeful for gaming. Worse than disc loading sometimes. I'll hopefully start diving further in to the homebrew rabbithole once I've got that sorted.