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Okay so I'm planning to buy a virtual piano software. I recently tried pianoteq 4 stage trial. I won't lie, the expressiveness is really good. But the sound was very unappealing. That essence of hammer striking the strings is missing. Also, the lower notes do not have any rigor in them. So I don't think that I'll buy it.

So, I'd like to look for some sampled ones. Most of them require a 7200rpm hard disk. Mine is 5400rpm. Are there any sampled virtual pianos which will run smoothly on 5400rpm? Also, is there any workaround for tackling with 5400rpm problem? Maybe an external ssd or something?
Laptop Specs: 6GB RAM, i5 3rd gen, 1tb 5400rpm hdd.

Try it and see. It might work. At worst you could swap in a faster drive for well under $100.

What kind of connectivity do you have? (firewire, usb 3, usb 2, expresscard...)

I run Vintage D with a 5400 RPM HD, no issues at all.

Except with super large-size samples (imperfect samples extreme) or older libraries, before the software issues were worked out, it's a myth that hard drive speed is the primary limiting factor with software pianos. They load the first few seconds of every note into RAM beforehand, which gives them plenty of time to stream the rest of the note off of disk while you are playing. So disk latency isn't an issue. Also even high quality, uncompressed samples aren't that huge.

A 5400RPM hard drive will pretty much work any of the common software pianos without breaking a sweat.

I sometime ran Ivory2 American D on my old laptop Fujitsu T5010 tablet 5400 HD/ with only 3gb memory + Focusrite soundcard and it works as well as my desktop workstation.

The only problem I had was with EastWest Piano Gold library which did not run smoothly on my laptop (intel duo core 2,4 GH i5 and 500GB 7200 hard disc). Ivory II and Galaxy faced the same issues but when I switched from Roland 1M-G Cakewalk MIDI interface to the simple USB/MIDI the problems misteriously disappeared. Now, I run Ivory II and Galaxy on my old Macbook air (1,6 GHz intel, 128GB SATA drive) without any problems.

I have the full version, which puts more load on the system (multiple mics, 24-bit samples instead of 16-bit), and it works well on my Core 2 Duo P8600 2.4GHz/7200rpm laptop, which has a lot slower processor than yours. ;^) I do have to run a special utility to disable all power management of the disk drive though - just disabling it in Windows is not enough. ( http://www.drivepowermanager.com ) I don't have to run this when using Kontakt based instruments.

Greg.

I do have a USB 3 port.

I really like the sound of Galaxy Vintage D. But what about the real time latency issues?

What about increasing RAM ? 16/32 GB is quite cheap now. If the host software is intelligent enough and you are using 64-bit system, it should be able to load all samples into memory and then hdd speed does not matter.

Thanks Greg, I will test it on my laptop with Win7, however, I have the same problem on my Macbook Air (possibly due to the slower processor?).
Romek

We actually just discussed this in a different thread. Latency (and the crackling/popping some people experience) are not due to hard drive speed but to audio buffers, audio drivers, and *maybe* CPU (e.g., power settings or piggish background processes).

Vintage D (and other Galaxy products), in particular, is kind to the hard drive because the samples are compressed on disk so they are relatively small files to read in.

Also RAM isn't typically an issue. Vintage D, for example, loads 230 MB or so of sample into RAM. Unless you have less than a GB or so (maybe 2) I would say there's no issue on that front.

I think that an SSD on USB 3 should effectively remove any concern about drive speed.

I am using Addictive Keys (wasMusicianns friend Stupid Deal of the Day at $29.99 last month). Juno Gi is my midi/audio interface- latency around 448 ms or so. 8GB ram, i5 as well and also a 5400rpm. I have been doing okay with it)

FYI- Addictive Keys is back to $29 at MF- I think it is worth it- D + U3 + Mark II

Are you sure about 448ms latency ? I can not stand anything over 10ms.