Hard Drive. Help Requested, Newbie enquiry Options

[Foxyphil]

I have an emac G4,1 Ghz, running osX 10.39. Also recently purchased Focusrite Saffire, bundled with cubase le. Its clear to me that my mac just doesnt "do" 192hz, but I want to try to record files at 96hz. Doing this currently uses up a huge ammount of cpu.

I plan therefore to get an external drive, and will prob go the firewire route, maybe with USB2 compatibility. My question to experienced users is this. Is there any possible DISadvantages at getting a 300 or 400gb drive? Is it possible that an emac couldnt "hack" that ammount? The prices dont seem that much more expensive (I was thinking either Seagate or Carrilion) than for 100 gb. To be honest< id rather not have to upgrade any more hardware for at least a year or two - hopefully longer. I would actually like to try making a few tracks now.

Any input would be great.

Thanks in advance and thanks for great site too.

Phil

[mixfisto]

Foxy, as far as the size of the hard drive is concerned, it really doesn't matter as long as you "defrag" regularly. You must go with a Firewire if you plan on using it as your main audio drive, usb2 is not fast enough for real-time...
About the 96k... I don't know what kind of music you plan on doing and how many tracks and plug-ins you want to use, but your emac at 1 Ghz is going to get maxed out pretty quick. Especially if you have less than 1Gb of RAM (the more RAM, the better). If it were me, I would highly consider staying at 48k, and having a smoother running system with more power, instead of always pushing the Mac to it's limit (after awhile it gets very frustrating and becomes more of a technical battle than music making). Depending on what your other equipment is, I really don't think that sonically there would be a big enough difference to justify the 96K. I have friends making records today, selling hundred's of thousands of albums that are recorded at 48k....
Don't mean to burst your bubble, just trying to give you my opinion. Good luck with whichever way you go!!!