Macbook pro?

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 8:13 pm

I was just curious as to whether or not a macbook pro would sufficient for recording. It would have to run Pro Tools LE and handle 96khz audio. If I got one, I'd probably go with the cheapest pro available (2.4 ghz core 2 duo, 2 GB RAM, 200 GB hard drive.)

Is it necessary that the hard drive be 7200 rpms? These have 5400 rpm hard drives. That's a big concern for me. If a 7200 is necessary, is it possible to put a new hard drive in, or should I just go external?

I would appreciate any input.

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 8:58 pm

It's necessary that you get an external drive and yes 7200rpm would be recommended. The MackBook Pro should be fast enough but even at that, I'm not sure how many tracks you'll be able to run at 96k. Does it hat to be at 96k? Do a search on sample rate/bit rate to get opinions on that.

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 2:26 pm

Why does he need to get an external drive? A 7200rpm drive is available for the MacBook Pro.

Is there something else at issue?

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 2:44 pm

Writing to the system drive is a problem. Even if it is partitioned, you should not write to the same physical drive that your OS runs from. On smaller projects it may not be an issue but as soon as you start getting into larger projects, especially at high samplerates, you'll get glitches any time the OS needs to access the drive.

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 3:11 pm

ya. its really is best if you get an external HD. i have a macbook pro and protools le. for awhile i was running it without an external HD and lots of times PT would freeze up on me or was just running the computer so hard it would have major glitches while i was trying to record.

but luckily that didnt last very long cuz then i finally got an external hd and everything runs fine and makes it a lot easier on my computer.

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 10:47 pm

I recently purchased a mac book pro 2.4Ghz together with an external drive featuring eSata and FW connections.

2 Tracks of 96KHz at 32Bits is abt 770KBytes /sec so use that as a rule of thumb (with a 15% over head)

For recording many tracks i would definately recommend an external drive featuring an eSATA connection this future proofs you on the condition that you may require more tracks in the future. (you will also need to buy a Express 34 to eSATA card) Works great if you are already occupying your FW port with multi channel input output device.

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 12:08 am

i have a macbook pro 2,2 with an external firewire800 drive running logic 8. it works great. i record onto the external but have all the samples of the exs24 (which is the software sampler in logic) on the internal drive. never had any problems with that setup.
but i do recommend to upgrade your ram to 4gb. that's definitely the next thing i'm gonna do.

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