Recording more than one track at the same time

[HeadCrusher]

Hey there.

My current interface only has two inputs put I'm going to upgrade soon so I can finally record drums and such.

Let's say I'll be recording 8 tracks at once. As they'll have more data than 2 I'm not sure if my computer will be able to handle it without drop outs.
I'm on a Pentium M 1.5 GHz and I have 2 hard drive options: internal (I guess it wouldn't work, would it? uke: ) or external via firewire (which I would have to daisychain through the audio interface then - or I could connect it via USB 2.0). Can't have a dedicated internal audio drive as I'm on a notebook.

What do you think? Any suggestions? Where do the other guys on notebooks (are there any?? ) record their data to?

On a sidenote: Any suggestions on an interface with 8 mic pres? Firepod (highly considerating this on), anything else?

Thanks again in advance.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

how much ram? you should be fine with what you have for recording. for mixing, you may need to upgrade...if you get a good soundcard, it will do a lot of the processing so it wont matter.

 

[HeadCrusher]

512MB DDR SDRAM (-8MB for the shared memory graphic card)
Having mixed a few small projects so far I didn't encounter any problems. You know, I don't have to many tracks I still have a lot of stuff to learn.
So you're saying I'll probably be able to record to the internal drive without problems?

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

512MB DDR SDRAM (-8MB for the shared memory graphic card)
Having mixed a few small projects so far I didn't encounter any problems. You know, I don't have to many tracks I still have a lot of stuff to learn.
So you're saying I'll probably be able to record to the internal drive without problems?

I do it all the time on my laptop. What soundcard are you thinking of getting?

 

[HeadCrusher]

Probably the Firepod. You know I don't want to have to spent extra bucks for the pres for a start so I think it might be a good choice.
Suggestions are of course welcome!

 

[KnifeVariable]

You'll be fine, I've recorded 8 tracks with a Firepod many times using hardware nferior to what you have (my office laptop ).