There is always more than one way to collect strategies. Aaronpriest does it one way and I do it another. Both ways work! About using computer resources I run 3 Ea Studio on one machine and 4 on the other. I set the run time to 2880 minutes so they are only running for two days each week. About computer resources, I am using about 50%. If this is a problem you can always run them over the weekend when the markets are closed.
In addition, I have thousands of strategies in collections for each forex pair that it is not really necessary to run EA Studio anymore. However, I still collect them. All that is needed is to load them into the validator, set how much historical data I want to use, set the filters, etc, and let it run. As an example, “I can validate a collection of strategies collected a year ago and find strategies that work in recent market conditions.” I have so many strategies collected when I run the validator I get a lot of correlations (similar strategies). This tells me EA Studio is finding duplicate or very similar strategies. This confirms that I have so many collected strategies I really don’t need to use the Reactor to find new strategies as I have a sufficient quantity to run through the validator to find strategies that work in today’s trading environment.
Jaylon, it would be wise to have two computers available and save all your collections and EA Studio settings on an external hard drive. Also, set up your MetaTrader/MetaTraders with login on both computers. Set it up so you can do the same work from either computer. Computers do crash. This way if something happens you can always keep working. I haven’t had a computer crash in a long time but it pays to be prepared. With two computers it also gives you the ability to collect more strategies without Express Generator. Then think about getting Express Generator.
Jaylon, I’m not trying to talk you out of getting the Express Generator I am just explaining why I cannot justify the cost. However, I would suggest you have computer redundancy before getting Express Generator to protect yourself. Do what you think is right for you!