Which Mac & Which Protools Le?, Trying to figure out which of the new Macs will work best with which P Options

[MacFeegle]

I’m new to MacMusic, and I’m sure these questions may seem rather basic, but I can’t seem to find answers; hence this post.

I am currently running ProTools LE 6.1.2 through a Digi 001 on a 5-year-old 733 mhz G4 (OSX 10.2.8) with 640 mb RAM and a second hard drive for audio files (120 gb, 7200 rpm). I also use Reason Adapted inside ProTools some of the time. I experience a lot of error messages and often have to wait for the little spinning thingy when I am recording. It can be quite frustrating. Shortly after the purchase of my Digi 001, Digidesign discontinued the item. Not long after that, they stopped supporting it. This computer is being asked to serve as a family computer with four users, plus one user account for recording. Due to the aforementioned lack of support from Digidesign, I can no longer update my operating system (which is causing problems relative to the computer’s use as a family machine) without also replacing my music hardware. As is usually the case, money is short so I need to figure out the most affordable solution to my dilemma.

My current idea of a solution is to leave the G4 as a family machine, perform whatever updates it needs to meet those needs, and buy a new Mac for music alone. This will also require the purchase of a new ProTools system as well as a second hard drive for audio. Apple has just released new MacBook Pros and I haven’t seen anything posted yet comparing them to MacBooks.

So, the questions:

1) Will a MacBook loaded with RAM be enough to run ProTools and Reason, or will I find it inadequate? The MacBook Pro has more ports, comes with more RAM and has faster processors, but I could fill a MB with RAM and have money left over for the price of a MBP.

2) Which ProTools unit? I think I'm stuck with PT since I have been making some money doing session work for local studios that also use PT, although I don't actually know if I can use other software and still create compatible files to give them. Most of my recording is done by myself, one track at a time, so the MBox2 looks like it might be enough. I’m a little leery of the USB connection, which leads me to the MBox2 Pro, which is Firewire. Of course, for the price of the MBox2 Pro, it looks like I can trade in my 001 toward an 002 rack for about the same price through Digidesign's hardware exchange program. However, the 002 rack has been out for a while now, and after my experience with the 001, I’m concerned that it may become obsolete very soon.

3) Any Firewire drives out there that people like for audio?

Thanks in advance for any input and suggestions you may have.