Laptop Specs question

[spy2520]

i think i am going to be purchasing a laptop in the next few months and i have a couple questions for those of you who run PT on laptops. i've read what i could in the sticky but i'm asking for some more specific info.

1. Should i bite the bullet and go for the Intel C2D T7600 (2.33GHz)? or will a slightly more affordable one suffice? i dont do very high track counts, but i dont really work with audio much especially on a project that will start on a laptop, however i'd imagine every track will have a virtual instrument or possibly a plug-in. I don't want to spend too much money but i dont want to have a chance of being under-powered either.

2. What type of external hard-drive? USB or Firewire(1394)? or even eSATA? I'm probably going to get a big ass hard-drive just to cover the bases...

any help you guys can give would be much appreciated, and i dont need suggestions for whole laptops just the specs/components...

[Detuned6]

2. What type of external hard-drive? USB or Firewire(1394)? or even eSATA? I'm probably going to get a big ass hard-drive just to cover the bases...

any help you guys can give would be much appreciated, and i dont need suggestions for whole laptops just the specs/components...

Dont bother getting a usb external unless its for backing up and you got it cheap. You can build a Firewire drive for the same price. You need to have a FW400 minimum to record on(usb will not cut it) FW800 would be better, and SATA 1 or 2 would be evan better. Important things your external harddrive MUST have. The HD case has to have a Oxford 911,912 or 924 chipset. If you go with a FW800 or sata ex. drive (most laptops dont have FW800),You will need to get a PCMCIA card($20-$80) for your laptop and it must have a Texas Instruments Chipset.The hard drive must be minimum of 7200rpm and have a Average Seek Time of 10ms or lower.

[spy2520]

thanks alot, hopefully it isnt too hard to meet that criteria...