Storing samples on primary hard drive vs external

[Smenelian]

I have a couple of options in my current situation. I have a Macbook with a 5200rpm drive. I want to install Logic and some other plugins. Should I upgrade the internal hard drive to 7200rpm and install everything there, or keep the current internal drive and get a firewire 400 drive at 7200rpm to install samples on? I want whatever will get the best performance results.

[Yoozer]

Upgrade the internal drive anyway, you'll love it.

A software sampler like Kontakt has several ways to get the data from the disk; streaming (which might clog up your FW bus pretty fast), or in RAM (which would drain your available processing power) Having the samples on the internal drive would certainly be faster when loading, and probably more pleassant to work with.

For "loose" collections - percussion/FX/ambience samples that aren't part of a library, you could use the external drive.

[rig1015]

7200rpm is essential for doing audio so I would recommend upgrading. As for where to store it, if you need to have it on an external that is cool, but think internal storage if having it external is messing up your workflow (constant issues with coreaudio crashing).