please help me out with some basic questions

i just bought an mpc with 8 outs and max memory and in good cosmetic condition for 900 bucks.i got 400 more dollars to spend.

i want to get a zip drive or a cdrom.
if i am correct a zip drive would be used for stoarge and saving stuff and the cdrom would be used to upload the samples.

is this right?would i need both of them at the same time?

since i am also looking in the future to get a multitrack would it be a good idea to buy a dps12 with a cdrom for 400. i would get the cdrom i needed and the multitrack.

i also need help just starting out. i can i start uploading music to be sampled without having a cdrom or a zip drive.i have the mpc but i cant do anything with it i dont know where to start.

A zip drive can load and save, so you dont need a CD Rom drive unless you wish to load samples from sample CD roms.

until you buy either of those, you can alwayz use the floppy drive and floppy disks to get started. download a bunch of sounds off the internet. search the forum here for threads from egokilla, he has posted alot of free kits for people to download and use. the internet is full of samples, just search around. i would suggest getting used to the mpc, and checking out the tutorials on this site. you could always get into sampling your own sounds from records, video tapes, whatever you want, but I really think if you get used to making beats and how to work the mpc inside out first, you will be better off.