I've been a digital orchestra composer for while now, but I'm only just getting into this whole multi-computer setup concept. I kinda want to start out by seeing if you think this approach I'm going to do is the right way, or if I should augment it in some fashion.
Limiting to spending about $2000 USD. I figure that gets me VEP + 3 dongles and 3 x Slaves speced as the following:
i7-3770
32 GB RAM
256 GB SSD (Startup)
512 GB SSD (Library)
My current machine will remain my master (i7-6700, 32 GB, RME Babyface Pro). I currently have all of my Kontakt libraries sitting on 1.5 TB worth of SSD there.
Going forward multi-machine, I figure I'll have one slave for Strings, one for Brass, one for Winds. I have Spitfire Symphonic as my main library, along with various other solo stuff in Kontakt and standalone VSTi. So my Strings library, I'm hoping that it can handle Spitfire Symphonic Strings and Cinematic Studio Strings, along with Embertone and Audiomodeling solo strings as needed.
Some specific thoughts I'm wondering:
1) It seems that even though it's a few generations back, the 3770 is still a fine processor to get so I've been looking specifically at refurbished 3770 desktops. Is that the right approach?
2) Is 32 gigs enough?
3) If it's not enough, for about the same money per machine, I could get an older Xeon X5687 with 48 GB, but with only SATA 2 instead of SATA 3. Is that a worthwhile difference?
4) Is $2000 USD just too little for what I'm hoping for, and should I really anticipate spending 150-200% in order to have a setup I can be happy working with for the next 3 years?
Thanks for all your help!