MacBook Pro for music production

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Afternoon,

I've always been a PC user, but since I'm fairly experienced with Windows I know that laptops are no good for music production. They are just not reliable enought. No pc's that you buy as is in cheap store are actually.

So I want a mobile studio... something that give me the option to work on my music while I'm traveling. At home the computer will be connected to a wireless keyboard, wireless mouse and an external screen and an external harddrive to store what I'm not actually are working on right now. Basically, it'll be used as a stationary.

I'll be recording my songs with Cubase 5. I record audio through the external soundcard (Focusrite Saffire PRO40)... we're then speaking miking up guitar/bass amps and vocal. Could happen recording from three sources at once, sometimes two, but definitely mostly just one source at a time.
In addition I will use programs such as EzDrummer for...well... drums. I will use Guitar Rig 4 for silent recording of ideas (the studio is placed in the livingroom, so...) and various VST plugin's for piano, strings, and other orchestral effects.
Control Room will be enabled to allow for utilisation of the MacBook internal soundcard during editing

I thought I'd go with the 2.66GHz i7 CPU.
4GB should be sufficient... upgrade later if I must, but Apple is charging blood for the RAM. I mean... I have enought blood to make it through the day without any concern, but not so much that I just want to spill it everywhere :p
Antiglare screen off course.
Anyone with knowlede on the topic disagreeing are welcome to tell me that I'm totally wrong... I don't need so CPU... A MacBook Pro can't be used for studio or whatelse you may disagree with...

Then we have the harddrive. I have no confidence in that a 5400RPM harddrive will be to my satisfaction.

That was the introduction... here are my questions
1. A 7200RPM harddrive is what I have on my PC and this is fast enough.
However, a 7200RPM harddrive do generate some more heat... Will either of these harddrives generate so much heat that the MacBook Pro automatically shuts down to protect the hardware...just like PC's do when they reach a specified temperature?

2. Should I consider an SSD harddrive for this? They are shamelessly expensive. The option then is the 128GB SSD drive. This should be enough to bring a couple of temporary movies, quite a lot of music and all my music projects. General downloads, downloaded programs, music ideas and all these things that takes heaps of space on a harddrive will be stored exclusively on an external harddrive...and an offline backup harddrive.

3.It seems like only the 17" have the ExpressCard/34 slot that allows me to connect eSATA discs to the MacBook Pro. I'm not totally sure I will need this. Any thoughts based on the information provided? With a 128GB SSD, will I need to stream stuff from an external harddrive? I consider the 15" instead as this may be a bit lighter to bring around... no decisions has been made though...

4. My external soundcard is a Focusrite Saffire PRO40 that I run through Firewire (400 unfortunately)... does anyone have any idea what latencies I may experience, say with a buffer at 512?
Just for reference... oh... I'll be using Cubase 5 btw. I'm currently using Cubase 4, but I will upgrade.

5. A mister someone on the web told me that the 17" would be too big if I plan to use it in airplanes and that it can easily deform the fragile/thin screen. Is this a fact??? Is the screen so fragile that I may easily deform the screen?
 
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MacBookPro 11,2 <--DAW!!!
IMHO...

1) The 7200RPM HD does get hot but not hot enough to shut the MBP down.
2) I wouldn't go for a SSD HD until bigger GB models come out for faster reading and writing speeds.
3) I couldn't live without my Express slot on my '07 MBP. I can add FW800/400, USB3 or eSATA card for another peripheral connection.
4) I don't know about a Saffire cards but I use an M-Audio Firewire Audiophile (FW400) with no latency issues or problems.
5) you can get an external shell to protect your MBP. I use the See-thru Speck cover to protect it from the occasional bumps and scrapes.
 

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