How to boot Mac and store programs on external SSD?

[BigMac182]

I don't actually have a copy of the physical optical CD disk of the operating system.

Despite this, can I still make it so that all programs and boot-up happens via a thunderbolt-connected low-capacity-but-fast SSD, and all media files are stored in some other large-capacity-but-slow mechanical hard drive (which could be the internal HD)?

Is this possible to do?

Can anyone tell me how I can go about doing this?

 

[Ice-Cube]

Sure, just clone your HD now over to your external HD using SuperDuper! Bootup from the cloned drive, delete everything off your internal HD and you're good to go.

 

[BigMac182]

Thanks - so all applications will open and run faster?

Also, if using an thunderbolt external SSD, will the performance actually be that much greater than the internal mechanical HD, because, apparently when booting up and running externally, everything is slower?

 

[Ice-Cube]

I haven't had the chance of testing how stuff run off an external thunderbolt SSD but typically things running off an external HD is slower compared to the internal HD mostly cos of the transfer speed. You can bootup from the external HD and test it anyway.