Ideas for rejuvenating MacBook in order to optimize GarageBand performance?

Hello,
I am finally about to start recording my album, using a very basic kit of Garageband 3.0.4, an Audio Technica AT4033 mic, Edirol UA-25 USB audio interface and various acoustic and electronic instruments (drums, percussion, vocals, piano, guitar, old analogue synth, etc). Backing up everything as I go onto a Lacie Rugged external hard drive. There's going to be quite a few layers of sound involved (lots of harmonies) and I'll probably be using some of GarageBand's built-in effects such as reverb.
The definite aim is to manipulate these admittedly modest resources to create a finished product that is as professional and high-quality sounding (once it has been mastered) as anything that you would hear in the charts.
I have a majorly limited budget so cannot afford a whole new Mac laptop at the moment.
My question is, how can I best tweak my existing late-2006(?) MacBook so that GarageBand performance will be as reliable, latency-free and quick as possible? I really want to avoid GarageBand crashing and losing valuable recordings and work.
I already have a few ideas:
--Have just ordered a Kingston 2GB RAM memory module kit (KTA-MB667K2/2G) to increase my RAM from 1GB to 2GB
--I've repaired Disk Permissions and done a full cleanup using CleanMyMac
--Was thinking about transferring everything except perhaps the Home Folder to a large external Firewire hard drive to free up maximum internal HD memory as I currently only have 35.3 GB available
--Was also considering buying a secondary used (& cheap) Mac laptop from eBay for everything else (internet, other work, itunes etc) and using my MacBook for GarageBand only, in order to increase the internal hard disk's lifespan
I would welcome any and all comments, recommendations and suggestions.
Many thanks in advance
kris

kristopher19 wrote:
Thanks for your reply gjmnz. I had checked my mac's specs on macupgrades.com and also did the Crucial memory scan, and these sites recommended a maximum of 2GB in 2 x 1GB PC5300 modules, which I've now fitted. Do you think it could actually take a bigger RAM upgrade, though?
I would not know without doing a check. I was just going by the spec's in your sig. I also have a white macbook 2Ghz with 667 Mhz bus speed and it is currently running 4GB Ram and can actually take 6. With the white mac books there can be a difference between the original advertised spec's and what they can handle. I used the link I posted above to discover what my MB can handle. It may be that my MB was late in the refresh cycle and yours was early. Perhaps double check with the OWC site in the link. As with the Ram, many of the MB's can handle much bigger and faster internal drives, even solid state. It has been my experience with PC's that by using bench marking software to check the average read/write speeds of internal and external drives that the best spent money is on your internal drives when comparing against using USB2 and FW400 external drives of speeds up to 7200rpm.
Edit: Just did a check on the 2,1 macbook and here is a quote from the OWC site
MacBook2,1 (All) - Install up to 4.0GB total memory, uses up to 3.0GB.
Note: Although limited to physically utilizing a maximum of 3GB, there is a performance
benefit due to 128 Bit addressing when 4GB( 2GB x 2 Matched set) is installed.
Just double check yourself...
Message was edited by: gjmnz

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☞ Most importantly, a false sense of security is dangerous.
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When you install any new system software or updates be sure to repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand. I also recommend booting into safe mode before doing system software updates.
Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
Backuplist
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
iBackup
JaBack
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MimMac
Retrospect
Super Flexible File Synchronizer
SuperDuper!
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SyncTwoFolders
Synk Pro
Synk Standard
Tri-Backup
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Idea for Inverse Kiematics of Robotic arm

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> I would like to know of any fresh idea for a robotic arm Inverse
> Kinematics.I have given the details in my last posting.
I haven't dealt with this since college, but it is very common for there
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