as mentioned elsewhere, the only wall i've had to scale or think i will ever need to scale is in ram. the newer vst sample plugin libraries want 16+ gb of ram, and i'd need to get to 64-bit to do it. that's a potential driver nightmare. it's likely workable, i just don't want to do it until i have to.

i'd have to reimage, to start with. it took a long time to build that image, and i don't want to even think about it. but, i'd certainly use 64-bit xp, fwiw. there's no benefit in upgrading; i just keep the machine offline.

what i'm wondering in the short-run is if i can convert one of these 250 gb drives into a pagefile. it would not be as fast, of course. but, it might potentially let me run a sampler.

this is entirely theoretical, right now: i haven't *actually* had an issue with a sampler that i can't resolve with the existing set-up. it's just that i see where the push factor is, and what's going to eventually force me to upgrade, one day. i'm going to eventually need more ram and have no choice...