Stick the new HDD in an external firwire box and use that. Use the HDD in the Mac to just be the operating system and programs drive. Write audio to the external.

The bottleneck in the laptop is the cpu fsb.

I agree with Greener. You want two drives, one for OS, one for recorded audio. The extra speed of the 10k drive will allow you to stream more tracks for multi tracking. I forked out the extra cash for a 10k RPM drive, and get 24 tracks simultaneously recording with the drive chirping 1/3 of the time. It may not have been worth it. 7200 should be fine for just about anything you want to do.

How about one of the new solid state drives?

http://www.cdw.com/shop/search/results.aspx?key=Imation+SSD&platform=All&sr=1&Find+it.x=0&Find+it.y=0

Quiet

Long life

Extremely fast

SATA II

Mounts anywhere a standard drive will mount.

Crazy! $3000 for a 128GB solid state drive? The new MacBook air is coming with 128GB SS drive and it retails for just over $2000.

8gb micro sd.

That makes me freak out.

MacBook air makes me think about what's in the heads of some people.

Greener wrote: MacBook air makes me think about what's in the heads of some people.

It might seem like a fools idea right now. I can't wait till more company's start moving toward Solid State drives. It's one of the biggest bottlenecks in a computer. Imagine a computer that is virtually instant on. That is the MacBook Air. I would love to see an entire OS ship as a Solid State drive instead of on DVDs.

"Imagine a computer that is virtually instant on. That is the MacBook Air."

But there is nothing that's instantly on.

My typewriter is just as powerful. It's always on.

I too look forward to an interesting and better SSD world. Just don't get me started on Macs. :P

I am saving all my audio data to the hard drive. I am using usb 2.0 instead of firewire because my firebox is using the firewire input. Should I get a firewire hub and run both firewire?

oh no he didn't!!!

Please tell me what I'm doing wrong. I'm not an expert at this.

Ok, I guess I was connecting it wrong. I put a firewire output from my audio interface to the computer and a firewire output from my audio interface to my hard-drive. Is that correct?

I still have the same core audio problem though.

Are there settings in logic that I need to change? Audio settings? Buffer settings?

thanks for you help

What sample rate/bit rate? How large is your buffer. It should be no more than 256 or so.

44100 sample rate. My buffer was 512 and I just put it to 256 and I still got the error. When I went to the system performance the audio was the thing that kept getting maxed out. Is it my audio interface? Should I lower the buffer even more?

Welcome to the world of DSP, and overloading your system.

The general rule of thumb... small buffers for tracking, big buffers for mixing.

One thing you may want/need to do, is render stems to get the actual track count being processed down.

You should also watch out for how many plugs you are using. Synth's, convolution verbs and big plug-ins are resource hogs. Check the manual and look for reccomendations for maximums, and norms.

As slow as your overall system is, it should still be plenty strong enough to handle 24-36 tracks with at least 1 plug/channel.

Also, there should be a few system settings to disable/set, that will ease the processor load. This info should be in the manual in the set-up/getting started setting.

Do not run ANY other applications when you are running the DAW.

What should I have my buffer settings at?

Whatever works.

A wise man once said:
"In audio, the key is not finding the golden rule, but in rewriting it to fit the current situation."

[Actually...] a (not so) wise man (called Codemonkey) said that (about 30 seconds ago).

For tracking, keep them low (as was said). Find the lowest possible value that doesn't click or pop.

For mixing, set it a lot higher. And if it clicks or pops at all, move it up a notch.