SSD for internal and fw 800 for external storage. Any good?

It will be faster, but you will be limited by your SATA controller on your 2010 Mac. Have you upgraded to 8GB RAM?

What will you be using the external drive for? USB2.0 is fast enough for most things. You can get a USB3.0 drive (compatible with USB2), more compatible, and it'll work with all your future USB3 computers and devices (much more useful)

 

Yes, it will still be faster than your HDD

 

When I upgraded mine to SSD it made a BIG difference. Well worth it. I have a mid-09 2.53 for reference. I was also coming from the Seagate Hybrid drives which aren't exactly slow with 7200rpm and partial ssd storage.

I also use FW800 for Time Machine and am always happy to have it over USB2. Makes things much quicker. In fact the one issue I'm having preparing for my new MBA to arrive is how to handle backups now that I'm without FW.

 

Solid state will make a big difference in even a computer with sata1, as I know from experience. The perceived speed of SSD's is as much about low latency as it is about throughput. SSD throughput in a 2010 MBP is probably in the region of 250 MB/s both ways, which is over twice as fast as any mechanical laptop drive. So yeah, it'll be much faster.

I have one of them icybox fw800 enclosures, and it does about 70 MB/s, which in practice is three times as fast as USB 2.0. In my opinion USB 2.0 was once a great thing but nowadays using it for anything storage or backup related takes just too damn long.

 

Totally. I'm just not enjoying having to buy more hardware.