All great advice... I'll suggest one other thing. My PT rig and external drives sound like a damn jet plane even though they racked and cased. so I don't use it much. I bought a pc from
www.rockinghamsound.com.. a Sonica something or other. I racked it in a rack case. It's barely audible at all. Probably one of the BEST things I have ever done.... it was really worth the extra cash.. I think I paid less than $1500 for a 3.4gig 2gig ram machine with 2 200gig drives. I added another 200 gig drive for samples (almost full already) and an external 200 gig (noiseless) drive for backing up everday. Did I say that that was one of the BEST purchases I have ever made? I can record ac gtr less than 3 feet from it and barely tell there's a sound other than the dogshit room I'm in...