Ibook 4200 Hard Drive Unsuitable For Daw Work? Options

[ambivilant]

It seems that next to RAM, the most important thing for a music machine is disk speed and 4200 is ridiculouisly slow, isn't it? I mean, for let's say a 7 minute song with y'know, 10 tracks or whatever, and a few softsynths, will an iBook with 512 end up queuing audio onto the hard drive and slow to the point of uselessness?

It's too bad the iBook doesn't come with a 5400 hard drive option; I'm left with a jump from a $1000 laptop to a $1600 one, and it's depressing because I really wanted to get a mac too. But the iBook has everything I need except that. Maybe I'm wrong, is the HD really that important after all?

[dockiki]

I think a general rule of thumb is to always get as much RAM as you can afford,
whether you are working with audio, photoshop or just about anything else.

But as far as the speed of a HD reading and writing audio, or swapping audio with a DAW as you say,
I think a 7200rpm external FW drive (with a large 8mb buffer) is going to be faster than any internal drive in
the current Apple laptops, iBook OR Powerbook.

Though I have a PB G4 now,
I recorded for about 2 years on a 700mhz G3 iBook with 640 mb ram.
Though it did ok by itself, (only small projects of course) ....
after I got the OWC ext. fw drive you'd be surprised how much that little iBook could
handle. track count, speediness, more plugins, everything.
Now with the PB, the ext drive is even more of a workhorse,
using the FW800 ports.

Also, regarding buying a new puter, check the Apple refurbished deals on their site.
They come with the same warranty as a new one.....
quite a bit cheaper.

hope some of this helps.
....Stiil learning about this stuff myself........