HI,

So I decided to stick with this Toshiba M305D-S4830 for my budget recording rig to go with my 16 channel Mackie 1640 and use the firewire setup to record band gigs of around 8-12 channels at any one time. Hopefully it's not going to be a mistake to jump into the realm of Vista 64 bit, I plan on using Cubase but am not tied down by it (if anyone has a better idea I'm all ears).

At this point I think the biggest bottle neck will prob be the 5400 RPM hard drive speed (see other specs below) so I'm looking into replacing it and considering options - which is where you guys come in. What would you do? Since they don't make the 10,000 RPM drive in 2.5" due to heat & power considerations, I figured I would just get a 7200 RPM 320 GB drive such as one of these http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150380%201309733643&name=320GB

For around $100 it seems like a pretty solid option, though even within that range theres a lot of brands and drives to consider. However, I also saw the newer larger drives http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150380%201309740009&name=500GB

Common sense told me a 7200 RPM drive is better than a 5400, but as I read about these larger drives some questions arose and now I'm not sure. Check out this discussion http://ask.metafilter.com/98308/Laptop-Hard-Drive-Decision-which-one-is-best-for-my-needs

So since you all know the most important aspects when considering gear from a recording perspective

1) should I consider any of the 5400RPM 500GB drives? Is it possible they'll be as good or better than 7200? I'm skeptical thought the space would be nice.

2) What do you think of the options right now upgrading to a Solid State Drive?

3)If the 7200 drive is the way to go, which of the brands / drives from that link would you go with?

4) It appears that depending on your use, the specs of the drive you choose may change. What do I really need to know about how hard drives work for firewire recording applications? For example can you help me understand and rate the importance of these kinds of things - average seek time, platter size & how densely the data is stored on the platter, partitioning the drives OS on one part and data on another (which I understand in concept but have never done), transfer rate, rotational latency, energy consumption (usually where I record there is power but in some rare cases not).

Some people say average seek time is most important consideration, how should I take in all this information about hard drives considering I'd like to build the best recording station I can within reason?

5) How do I go about this so as NOT to void the warranty?

THANK YOU

Other Specs:

Operating System - Vista Home Premium (SP1, 64-bit)
Processor - AMD Turion™ X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile Processor ZM-80
Processor Type - AMD Turion™ X2 Dual-Core Mobile Processor
Processor Number - ZM-80
Processor Speed - 2.10GH
Front Side Bus - HyperTransport™ 3: up to 3.6 (GT/sec)
Memory Size - 4096MB
Memory Speed - PC6400 DDR2 800MHz SDRAM
Display Size - 14.1" widescreen
Display Type - WXGA with TruBrite® Technology
Display Resolution - 1280x800, Supports 720p content
Graphics Engine - ATI® Radeon™ 3100
Graphics Mem - 256MB-1519MB dynamic allocated shared graphics mem
Hard Drive Size - 250GB
Hard Drive Speed - 5400rpm