Logic 7.2 - 5400 Or 7200 Rpm Drive? Options

[rcross73]

I am about to buy a MacBook Pro, and I will be running Logic 7.2 on it - recording audio, using lots of reverb, compression, software instruments, etc.

I like the 15" 2.33 GHz for portability, but it doesn't come with a 7200 rpm hard drive option. Only the 17" does.

I have been working on a G4 Ibook (1.33 GHz, 700-someting RAM) until now, which has forced me to use an external 7200 drive -- which is a pain. And I'm always having to freeze tracks, shut all nonessential tasks down, etc. to make eight to twelve tracks actually play back while recording. I would like to be able to mix down 24 tracks while also running Reason through ReWire.

Will the 15" MBP C2D 2.33 GHz with a 5400 rpm internal drive (with 2 GB of RAM) still be screaming fast enough, or will I need to opt for the 17" at 7200? Do I need to sacrifice a bit of portability (extra 1.2 pounds and wider and longer) for drive speed? Or are the improvements in chipset, processor speed, and RAM enough, so that the difference between 5400 and 7200 rpm drives is only going to be noticed by some guy working with 120 simultaneous tracks of audio?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[lepetitmartien]

The trouble is, you'll never be able to run 120 tracks from an internal laptop drive.

You can buy the Hitashi 160 Go which screams elsewhere and fit it yourself (easy job) (will run hotter and use a bit more batteries). But straining a hard drive with OS X calls to the drive, virtual memory, apps call and recording/playback, that's the reason you'll never get as much simultaneous tracks from the internal drive as from an external.