Hi,
The C: drive of my vaio laptop (vista) is getting full (120 Gb). It still works as it should but I need an overview with my files so I want to buy a second-hand laptop with at least 500 Gb space.
I read Lenovo Thinkpad doesn’t match well with Audacity? I think of Vaio again or Dell laptops? Any ideas on these or other brands that match well? And I like to record from the internet so with Lenovo this seems to be a problem… It doesn’t have to be the newest windows.
Regards
The make /model of the computer shouldn’t make any difference.
It’s important that the laptop is above the minimum specs for the operating system that you use. For Windows, you would need at least a dual processor, 64-bit, 8GB ram, 128 GB storage.
Audacity projects can get rather big, so plenty of storage space is recommended. Some laptops have two storage drives, a SSD for the system, and a much larger spinning disk hdd for storing data - this is a very useful (recommended) configuration when working with large media files.
I would highly recommend using a solid state drive (SSD) for the system drive - booting modern Windows from a spinning disk (hdd) drive is painfully slow.
Atom and Celeron processors tend to be a bit slow with modern Windows. Any Intel i3, i5, i7 or equivalent AMD processor should be fine.
If you are on a limited budget, it may be worth considering Linux rather than Windows. Some vendors will supply laptops without an operating system for less than the same model with Windows installed, but more importantly, there are lightweight versions of Linux available (free) that can run well on lower spec computers than Windows.
Almost any modern computer will work. Computers have been powerful enough for “basic” audio recording & editing for a long time. I think I was playing-around with computer audio before Windows 98… Back when a soundcard was an option…
If you are multitrack recording and using lots of real-time effects, processing power can be an issue. But Audacity isn’t very good at those things to begin with. 
But… The multitasking gets in the way… The operating system is always multitasking even when you’re only running one application and I’m pretty sure Windows itself hogs more computer resources than it used to. And computer manufacturers throw-in lots of junk that might be running in the background if you don’t remove it.
It’s usually this “other stuff” that interrupts the audio and causes problems. When people get a new computer and they get glitches in their recordings, it’s usually something else", not a hardware or Audacity problem.
And it’s really only a “problem” if when recording & playing back. When Audacity “processes” a file it’s just number crunching and a slow (or interrupted) computer will work fine even if it takes longer.
And sometimes Audacity can seem slow when opening or saving big projects.
Thanks guys, I appreciate it!
Still got some 20 Gig left, still got some time and will reread and think about this. But I know I’ll stick to windows as I’m used to. I got this specs with a Lenovo thinkpad W510 but some comment about someone not able to record the internet made me hesitate…
I’m not a multitasker, taking it slowly. It’s true, I got rid of the services etc too. If my disc wasn’t full I’d go on like this with Audacity, it’s decent now…
Greiga
Hi,
I just bought a Dell Precision mobile workstation, M6600. On it Windows 10, an i7-2760QM processor, 16GB ram and 500GB SSD hard disk. It has some old connection ports still on it which I was searching for too. The specs are a lot stronger than my Sony. It’s not a new laptop, it’s refurbished uniting old and new on a budget deal. It should do it, I hope. Thx
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