External Drive for my Powerbook

[jdogg707]

Well I have been using my new Powerbook 15" 1.5GHZ for about 2 months ad absolutely love it! The only problem I have is that I am starting to run out of room on the 80GB hard drive, due to my video editing, DVD burning, and large music collection. I would like to offset these things onto an external 250GB FW800 Hard Drive. I would also like to boot from this drive while at my desk, to take advantage of the faster disk speed, 5400RPM v. 7200RPM. So here are my questions:

- Is the LaCie d2 Extreme 250GB FW800 HD a good choice? Or is there a
better one out there?

- Since I want to boot from this drive, what do I need to do to still be able
to use it when I take it with me? Is there software I need?

- Will it be worth it to boot from it, or should I just use it for backup for
video and music?

- I also am looking for an external DVD Burner and was wondering what
would be a good one to use with Toast 6 Titanium, iDVD, and iTunes?

Well, those are all the questions I know to ask, is there anything else I should know? Thanks for the help!

[kbonnel]

hey jdogg,

I ran into these questions a couple of months ago, when I took an international assignment in Sweden. I decided to not boot off of the external drive, and use is it for storage. I only decided on this, because I didn't want to carry it around everywhere I go. I also don't want to deal with 2 different OSX installs, and keeping them in sync. Instead I basically decided to keep all of my important files (40gigs mp3, digital photos) on my PB, and back them up every night to the FW drive. I also keep all of my current documents/downloads/sandbox files on the external, freeing up space. I opted to purchase a 200GB WD drive, and put it in a FW400/USB2 MetalGearBox from newegg.com. It was cheaper than getting a LaCie or other packaged external drive.

As for the external DVD burner, I don't have any answers there. Sorry

Kimo

[jdogg707]

Thanks for the advice! I am looking at the LaCie because I want to be able to take advantage of the FW800 on my laptop.

Anyone have advice on a burner? I was thinking of going with the LaCie Dual Layer 8X DVD+/-RW External drive that comes with Toast 6 Titanium, since I was going to buy it anyway. Will this work?

[Duff-Man]

Duff-Man says....also have a look at the firewire drives from Other World (http://www.macsales.com/) - they are very good as well and they are an excellent company to deal with....oh yeah!

[Vector]

I have a Lacie 80GB firewire drive that i have been running my powermac off of for about 2 weeks, and it has worked great. I dont notice any more lag than my built in drive