Giga - going portable? Shuttle.com? Laptop?

[composer22]

Ok, I am kinda tired of being stuck in my apartment, tied to this tower configuration for giga, and am looking for a cheap way to move on the road during the weekends.

NOTE: my compositional activites range from chamber pieces to full orchestral works.

Question 1: Which chipset/option on these lists is best if I go with shuttle.com for a giga machine?

http://us.shuttle.com/compare5.asp (\"http://us.shuttle.com/compare5.asp\")
http://us.shuttle.com/compare5_2.asp (\"http://us.shuttle.com/compare5_2.asp\")

Question 2: As an option, if I go with a single laptop or shuttle for my work, what options are best if:

a) if I just want to run giga and a score based product such as Finale.

b) if I want to use giga and do audio sequencing recording?

Question 3: As an option, if I go with two laptops, what would be a good configuration for:

a) giga on one laptop
b) audio on another laptop

The underlining issue with the above is hard disk drive speed...which I question with laptop options.

All the best

composer22

[michael88s]

You probably know about the recommendation to use two HD\'s with Giga, one for apps and one for libraries. You can get away with one HD sometimes depending on the system and whether you\'re doing other things at the same time as Giga.

The reason I brought this up is that, if you\'re planning on using two HD\'s, you might want to keep in mind that the Shuttle case is extremely tight inside and heat dissipation could be a problem. Then again you could use an external USB 2.0 or Firewire HD, like you would on a laptop.

BTW I had a Shuttle for a short while and returned it for the above reason.

Someone more knowledgeable will have to help you with the other stuff I\'m afraid.

Regards,
michael88s

[composer22]

Originally posted by michael88s:
You probably know about the recommendation to use two HD\'s with Giga, one for apps and one for libraries. You can get away with one HD sometimes depending on the system and whether you\'re doing other things at the same time as Giga.
...
Regards,
michael88s <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">I guess that begs a question:

How many users are using single drives for their stand alone giga machines?

where does it work and where would it not?

[SteveHanlon]

I returned my P4 notebook because of noisy fans,,,two of them. Can\'t get around the heat issue with these fast noebooks. and the only way they solve it is by putting in more fans.


I also have a luncbox computer which is bigger than a notebook. It has two HD\'s but giga and audio both stream from the second HD. Performance is acceptable to get work done...but not ideal.

The laptops will mostly come with drives that spin at a slower rate than 7200 rpm for sake of heat. So, you probably could use the one drive (i.e. firewire) and just capture to audio often to spare the drive from doing two tasks at once (that\'s if you find the drive not performing well).

[michael88s]

There have been posts where people talked about having success with one hard drive, you\'d just have to search them out I guess.

I think that most professionals/studios go with multiple drives and often multiple workstations.


michael88s