macbook/multitrack recording compatibility

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Hey,

I am in the process of buying a new Macbook 2.4ghz duo core with 2gb ram, 5400rpm drive, with Mac OSX Leopard. My audio recording interfaces are 2 Presonus Firepods chained together, using Firewire 400. I want the absolute best combination of gear I own, which I'm thinking is having one internal drive, one external drive. I am multitracking up to 16 channels with small latency (hopefully 3 ms) for real-time monitoring, and live recording of these tracks to some HD.

Internal options:
-Pre-existing Apple SATA 150 5400rpm drive (160gb)
-Seagate Momentus SATA 150 7200.1 7200rpm drive (100gb)

External options:
-my old Toshiba IDE/100 4800rpm drive (100gb) using USB enclosure
-my old Seagate Momentus IDE/100 7200rpm drive (100gb) using USB encl.
-possible 4gb Flash/thumb USB drive

I am thinking of having one HD for the OS, and one for the real-time saving of audio tracks. I'm not sure whether this is alright, I guess I could still have the OS on the same drive as the audio saving, but I heard this isn't the best route. This leads me to my next question, whichever combination above is the best config, where should I put the OS? Internal or external?

I have worked out that by these options/combos above, I can have roughly 14 different configurations....I'm just not sure which combo to pick because of some finer details such as streamlining and stability for the audio. I'm also probably going to use some of the audio programs in WinXP sometimes so I will need Bootstrap or Parallels,etc. instaled in a partition there somewhere!

Any insight/comments/solutions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Paul
 
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Cross off any hard drive on that list that isn't 7200rpm. That's a must have if you're going to be recording and running sessions off of it. An external drive would be a good idea.

I was running Logic Pro off of my 1st gen Macbook's HDD (also 5200rpms), which was fine for 5-6 tracks, but once I started working on full band sessions, the HDD couldn't handle it. Now I run them off of a USB2.0 drive at 7200rpm without a problem (except for the occasional 'system overload' alert), but again that's because I'm using a 1st gen Macbook.

The Firepods are great though. The mic pres are not bad at all for the price. Blows the Digi 002 out of the water in my opinion, but I guess you're paying a premium for the software and not the interface there.
 

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