New student to ProTools has laptop questions

[jeff sanders]

I'd like to be able to do my ProTools school work at home and want to get a macbook pro laptop for portability. I also wish to use BFD2 which suggests a separate drive for audio data to play from. If I install a second SSD in my optical bay can I run bfd2 in protools 10 with a dongle only? I mean so I don't need anything else plugged in hardware wise but can still work on projects. Hope I'm in the right area here. I asked this question in the BFD2 forums also. I understand you don't provide support for their products but in conjunction with PT10 maybe another user knows,

thank you for help

jeff

[zoff]

Originally Posted by jeff sanders

I'd like to be able to do my ProTools school work at home and want to get a macbook pro laptop for portability. I also wish to use BFD2 which suggests a separate drive for audio data to play from. If I install a second SSD in my optical bay can I run bfd2 in protools 10 with a dongle only? I mean so I don't need anything else plugged in hardware wise but can still work on projects. Hope I'm in the right area here. I asked this question in the BFD2 forums also. I understand you don't provide support for their products but in conjunction with PT10 maybe another user knows,

thank you for help

jeff

Not sure what your question is exactly. I do run Pro Tools 10 on a Macbook Pro with 2 internal drives. I have an early 2011 MBP and at the time it was recommended to use the SSD in the HD tray and the HD in the optical bay. You can run Pro Tools (since 9) with just an iLok and the internal sound card. BTW between this MBP and the SSD drive the performance increase over a 4 year old MBP is tremendous.

[jeff sanders]

Originally Posted by zoff

Not sure what your question is exactly. I do run Pro Tools 10 on a Macbook Pro with 2 internal drives. I have an early 2011 MBP and at the time it was recommended to use the SSD in the HD tray and the HD in the optical bay. You can run Pro Tools (since 9) with just an iLok and the internal sound card. BTW between this MBP and the SSD drive the performance increase over a 4 year old MBP is tremendous.

ILok only, you answered it great, thanks. It seems a no brainer a second SSD would be better than a 7200rpm but I'd be a fool to assume. Would you know if SSD in HD And SSD in Opti bay is advantageous performance wise using PT10?

Thanks for the answers.

[zoff]

Originally Posted by jeff sanders

ILok only, you answered it great, thanks. It seems a no brainer a second SSD would be better than a 7200rpm but I'd be a fool to assume. Would you know if SSD in HD And SSD in Opti bay is advantageous performance wise using PT10?

Everything is faster with SSD. Check out this link. With PT10 you also have the option of loading your session into RAM. Avid only officially support this with PT10 HD, but there is a work around using a RAM Disk,

[jeff sanders]

Originally Posted by zoff

Everything is faster with SSD. Check out this link. With PT10 you also have the option of loading your session into RAM. Avid only officially support this with PT10 HD, but there is a work around using a RAM Disk,

Beautiful! Can PT10 plug-ins, especially BFD2, work in the RAM loaded sessions like that, too?

That would be perfect for what I need to use because BFD2 hogs it up they say.

[zoff]

Originally Posted by jeff sanders

Beautiful! Can PT10 plug-ins, especially BFD2, work in the RAM loaded sessions like that, too?

That would be perfect for what I need to use because BFD2 hogs it up they say.

I don't about BFD2, I don't have it, but all my plug-ins load just fine. I only tested the RAM disk briefly as PT runs just fine with the HD/SSD combo on my system. Most sessions only use 40% CPU, 10% disc access.

[jeff sanders]

You are very helpful and kind to answer my questions so understandably. I'm looking forward to having full time access to PT software I'm learning about at school. Blessings on your recordings! :)