Now that Vienna Instruments has made history by releasing the truly massive 550 gigabyte (yes, gigabyte!) Symphonic Cube, you have to wonder how much processing power you’ll need to actually orchestrate using this monumental collection of virtual instruments. Stock computers usually don’t have enough RAM to access the library. We suggest a minimum of 2GB, but considering how much you invested in your Symphonic Cube and high-end G5, spring for 4GB. The amount of available RAM (along with the computer’s processing engine) will have a direct affect on how many virtual instruments you can load at any one time.
But there’s a second part of the equation you mustn’t overlook. The Symphonic Cube loads a small portion of each sample into RAM, but then the rest of the data is streamed directly from your hard drive. Which means that you need a screaming fast hard drive that’s also large enough to store the 550GB worth of samples. While you might squeeze by with a dedicated external FireWire drive running at a minimum of 7200rpm with an 8MB cache, you’ll get better performance if you install an internal Serial ATA drive, which is also going to be less expensive because there’s no extra enclosure or need for an external power supply.
For the smaller libraries like the MOTU Symphonic Instrument or the IK Multimedia Miroslav Philharmonik, you’ll probably be fine with an external 7200rpm FireWire drive or a USB 2.0 drive. If you’re not sure about your specific requirements, just talk to your Sweetwater Sales Engineer.