Yes Mario made some good points.

For the motherboard, mine has a capacity of up to 32GB and it is already 3 years old. Often more RAM on a 64bit machine is better than the next faster processor. But a lot of software still does not make use of more RAM, so you can add more RAMs later. The software I have seldom gets to be constraint by the only 8 GB I have now.

Since HDDs are no more really expensive I'd get two 1TB or even 2TB internal drives. Prepare to get a large SSD, they are still expensive, you can put one in later. (Samsung has the 850 PRO 1TB with 10 years of warranty. Still too expensive if you're on a tight budget, but worth to be on your watchlist.) The SSD has another advantage. I uses less energy for its operation: 1. memory blocks need less energy than a spinning disk; 2. SSDs don't produce as much heat, that is less fan operation; 3. both of above features are less noisy. The next positive side effect that less air is sucked through your DAW and at the same time less dust to cover important parts.

For backup purposes I have an external 4TB HDD that will be soon replaced by another, because it is full. I could reuse it, but I choose not to in the next two years.

All depends on your wishes to expand and extend later. You always can start low.

Last edited by GHinCH; 10/02/14 08:25 AM.
Desktop; i7-2600k, 8 GB mem., Win 10 Pro, BIAB 2017; RB 2017 - latest build
Laptop: i5-2410M, 4 GB mem, Win 10 Pro, BIAB 2017; RB 2017 - latest build