Hi folks,

Greetings to all. I need some advice here but first of all, here's a bit of background information. I am basically a "live"-playing musician/ keyboardist and I'm getting into the home studio vibe. My gear is as follows:

Yamaha Mottif ES7
Lexicon Omega USB/MIDI Interface
Korg D888
A dell Latitude Laptop (1.6 Ghz, 1.5 Giggs of Ram, hard drive space> 60 giggs) windows XP PRO service pak 2.
Software >Finale 2007, Cakewalk Sonar 4 Studio Edition, band in a box 2008, Power Tracks Pro audio 12, Audacity, I tunes.

I feel like I need a more powerful computer so I am planning to soon max out my ram by going up to 2 Gigs. Here is what I want to ask. In terms of hard drive space, should I just go ahead and purchase an external hard drive 450 gigs (now going at a reasonable price at BEST BUY)? or would y'all advise me to purchase a bigger internal hard drive? For this particular Dell Latitude Laptop, the internal hard drive can go up to 160 gigs, maximum.

Also, should I PUT SOME MONEY ASIDE and wait for the October release of Windows 7 in and then purchase a newer laptop of a refurbished mac on www.powermax.com? In terms of my Budget, I am looking at approximately $700.00.

Any advice (in terms of all what I stated above) would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks, y'all !!!

Jacobins