mhb

Help! - What Gear Do I Need

Hello all,
I've been making music for many years, started with frootyloops.... then moved into real gear (mpc, digital multitracker, loop stations, synths etc.).
Getting to the point: I want to go back to computer based music - basically to minimize wires and connections, and the fact that my gear could use an upgrade - multitracker is giving poor results (digital noise) and my mpc1000 is a huge piece of junk (sound output quality, and of course the pad issues with this machine).
So i was thinking:
Macbook 2ghz core 2 duo
2 gig ram
80gig hd (5400rpm)
akai mpd24.
So to record into this, will it be necessary to have an external soundcard?
Will i require an external harddrive @ 7200rpm to record to?
Will the above hardware have to be firewire? can they be daisychained?
Is there a mac book (pro) that could handle my work load without all this extra gear?
I'm really trying to minimize the amount of gear i need to carry around with me.
Please help.
MHB