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I was looking at this refurbished Imac http://store.apple.com/us/product/FC814LL/A" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and was wondering, can I get away with not buying an external drive right now? I wanted to spend a little extra on the faster computer based on the benchmark scores. I know it's better to have an external drive for stuff like Komplete, Opus 1, and Ivory but I'm strapped to spend another $250 on a hub and a 1TB external. Any thoughts? Can I get away with loading the sounds on my main drive? This one http://store.apple.com/us/product/FC813LL/A" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; would be a great buy but it's 1400 points slower then the first link I showed you according to the benchmark scores. I'll eventually get an external drive but I was thinking of putting my money with a faster machine and then build from there.

I'm a big proponent of getting the best computer you can afford, and worrying about the add-ons later. After your initial expenditure (when you've saved up for an external HD) perhaps you should consider building your own. I've gotten several external enclosures through the years and popped HD's in them as needed. I've been very pleased with NewEgg's offerings. Also, take a look at OWC. I got a cheapo $30 firewire enclosure a few years back and thought what the heck. If it only lasts a short time, I'll just replace it. It's only thirty bucks. Well, it's still on my desk and going strong. There have also been some great deals on Western Digital hard drives, but the prices have been going up lately. Don't know if it's the holidays coming up or what, so shop around.

Phil

If you render your VI's to audio, that machine will and can do anything. If your only running 2 VI's at a time, then after your done getting the parts nailed, just render them as audio, disable the VI and move on... you can always go back and turn the VI back on and fix something. But if your going to save up for anything, go Thunderbolt because you'll get WAY better performance than FW. That machine is fast... you should have NO problem doing anything if you use your head, and utilize your resources well... I think whats most important about a native DAW is knowing what you can, and can't do and learning the workarounds to achieve the desired result... some don't like to render, but it ends up audio anyway to do a bounce to disk so why not? I don't know, I just have open the VI's that I need to work on at that time because some elements play off each other so you have to edit them as a a whole, but once it's right... just set assign an output, and set up a track and record it. I don't freeze but you can do that too... I'd rather just do a realtime render.
That machine can pull off just as big a session as a MacPro Nehalem 2.66 Q easily... very easily.

thanks for the advice. So is there a big difference in speed in the two computer links I posted t the top of this thread? There was like a 1300 point difference between the two accord to geakbench. Is that enough to make things crazy slow? There's a $250 difference between the two in the refurbished section of apple.

Those machines are fast. They get 10,000 geek bench and a MacPro nehalem 2.66 quad does 8600!
The iMac blurs the line between what a "pro" machine is now. Sure a 12 core is faster but just render tracks if your music is done virtual and as far as audio tracks go, 48 tracks don't even break a sweat on one.

With audio I am quite certain you'll get a bigger boost running two hard drives (or more) than you'll get by using a chip that's slightly faster. Most audio tasks aren't all that brutal on the processor, but both recorded audio as well as streaming samples are hard on hard drives and data busses. And running even modest DP projects from the same drive as the OS and DP itself tends to choke the machine rather quickly.

So unless you create all your music in a real time environment, i.e. inside a processing-heavy app like, say, Reaktor, I'd most certainly go for the external hard drive. I'd go as far as saying that you really do need two drives to run DP in any meaningful way (one for OS and apps, the other for the DP project.)

Yes, you do. Maybe...

You need some form of external storage for Time Machine. If you already have a networked backup or external drive already, that will work also.

Speed is not important. An inexpensive usb drive works nicely. A Time Capsule over ethernet or wireless gets the job done as well.

The $20 dock and an inexpensive 2T low power drive are all you really need. Besides TM, many of us will have a small bootable partition on it for Disk Utility and other maintenance/repair tools.

Hard drives have recently gone up in price due to a perceived shortage so the $59 2T drives available a few weeks ago may be impossible to find now.

The $20 eSATA/usb dock from Micro Center (and others) lets you use 2.5" or 3.5" drives - they just slip in as there is no case. It even comes with an eSATA and a usb cable. I have two - one via eSATA for my VIs and another via usb for Time Machine. I like that there is no fan noise (no fan). I have had one a year and a half now and just bought another.
http://www.microcenter.com/single_produ ... id=0300528" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Here's a 2T drive that slips right in for $85. It is rated 3G for transfers (same as the dock) which is why it is still available under $100.
http://www.microcenter.com/single_produ ... id=0334239" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Micro Center isn't the only game in town, of course, but this gives you an idea.

The other reason for an external is to stream VIs. Although it is not required to host VIs on an external, they do perform much better when done so. If you don't run VIs, this isn't an issue.

Although usb and FW800 will work, eSATA (5x FW800) and Thunderbolt (10-15x FW800) will have the highest performance. As mainstream TB externals aren't expected till Spring, many of us are using eSATA now. That same doc I mentioned in my last post works well, BTW.

See this thread about the eSATA mod available from OWC:

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... =4&t=48039" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You do not run Time Machine and stream VIs (or do anything else) from the same external drive.