bootable version of os x in an external hard disk? good idea??

Hi guys...
have just gotten myslf a new seegate freeagent pro for my mbp ... and want to partition it. Now, I've heard of bootable os x via an external hard disk ... can someone shed any light on this .. wht it's used for? why use it.. advantages...? ... and how big a partition should i keep for this ? also ... between hfs+ and hfs journaled... which format should i partition my external disk into?

thanks ...

 

HFS+ Journaled is the standard OS X file system, use that if you intend to only use the hd with Macs.

As for booting, yes you can put a bootable installation of OS X on an external usb2 or firewire hd if you wish. I don't use that as such, but I do make a backup of my drive on an external drive which also made it bootable, so I guess if I ever need it I have it ready. As for why, a backup is the most common use. It's also useful for some troubleshooting if there's ever an issue with the internal hd, but to keep a copy around on an external hd JUST for that... nah.

 

ahh.
thanks starlight...
iv thought of keeping a partition for backup ... so .. i guess that should suffice...

pardon my ignorance... does os x have an inbuilt backup utility? are there any external ones that are useful?

thanks!

 

Nopes, that's Time Machine that's arriving in Leopard .

For now, you can try Super Duper! There's a pay version and a free version, the free version should suffice.

 

thanks sam... ya... i heard of time machine ... was wondering if there was a watered down version of it used in tiger ...
in anycase.. i dn't need any backups for quite a while.. have not yet migrated any major data into my mbp ... and it's still light on installed applications....
thanks guys! ..

 

Yep, there are a number of things you can't do to OSX when it's on the system drive (a full manual defrag for example)...so having a separate book disk can be helpful.