running OS on external HD?

I have a nice 17" MBP that my work gave me.

I also personally own a current model 15" MBP.

Sometimes it seems like I should sell my laptop since I could prolly get ~ $2000 for it, Fusion and Vista and the 4GB ram upgrade on Craigslist or something.

[ edited for clarity, lolz] I could use my retail version of Leopard on an external HD for personal home use and use my work computer as a host? As long as I don't use applications from or write files to the internal MPB hard drive, my searches for japanese *** **** big brazilian ***** **** would never be an issue, right?

 

Well... I don't have a clue what the last sentence of your post means. lol

Secondly, if I were you I would not run an OS off of an external HD. You won't get the same performance and you will ultimately probably end up being disappointed...

 

You will not want to run your OS off of a external HDD, it will be very slow, and it also could be hard to setup the external HDD as the primary boot device. I'm not sure if you could set an external drive as the primary boot device on a Mac, and if you could I'm not sure where that option would be. On a regular non-Apple PC it would be in the BIOS. Of course even then, not all BIOS's support booting from external devices. And even if it did support it, it would be much slower then a HDD hooked up to SATA. External hard drives are really for Data storage not for main OS drives.

 

I'm pretty sure you can if you really want. But I would say sell the MBP and get a nice 24 inch imac to use at home and the 17 incher for work.

 

You def can target external firewire drives as boot drive.

 

you can definitely use any external HDD as a boot drive if you are using an Intel mac, and the partition is formatted for a mac with GUID table enabled. It is extremely easy to do as well. You can even use a USB flash drive as long as it is large enough, even an ipod, maybe even a networked disk, in fact I think I will try to boot of of an airdisk ^_^

I have recently installed a backup minimal install of Leopard on a 8gb partition on my 60gb mobile lacie porsche drive, and it runs absolutely fine, no real performance issue when just using it for basic tasks. why do this you say? well if there is ever an issue where my machine is unable to boot up onto the main internal drive for some reason, I can easily plug in the USB external, boot from that, then access the internal HDD files and make a change, backup, etc. etc. without worrying about restoring the entire disk, using the Leopard disk, etc. Much much better way to troubleshoot problems, and is exactly what a Genius at the Apple store will do with a machine that won't boot up. Working of FW800 is obviously the best option, so if possible go that route, but there is honestly no issue booting from USB as long as you aren't planning some hardcore stuff.

I recommend an 8gb partition just in case you need a little extra room to add a few things, and make sure to do a minimal install without all the extra content to save some space.

don't believe me? well, luckily you have these images to prove you wrong, I will be back with images from the USB installed OS.




Don't forget the GUID partition Table dummy! Choose options when partitioning to make sure it is enabled on the partition you want bootable.

EDIT! I am back from the world of USB booting, here is my proof:


Click on image for full 1920x1200

Startup Disk:



Why Japanese you ask? Well my USB boot disk just happens to speak Japanese very well and he is teaching me some on the side. Also, I like to develop AppleScript apps, and after a German guy rewrote my "fn" app to work in German, I thought it would be cool to work on a Japanese version as well sense I know a little of the language, and this is also a fantastic way to learn, as Mac OS X does an amazing job with localization.

I will even post up a screen cap video as soon as it uploads to my iDisk, in full HD, just for the Count:


1920x1200 - H.264 - 19mb

and a smaller version for the resolutionary challenged:


960x600 - H.264 - 15mb

give them time to load, you may see the Quicktime logo for awhile but they will load, or just right click and download.

oh, and if anyone quotes this message with multiple images I will personally backhand you.

 

WOW. Well honestly you guys are very silly. Nobody on this thread EVER said that they thought it wasn't possible, we all just said that it wouldn't run well. So to the last couple posters including the thread creator I say please read before you write!!

And to the thread starter, if you knew it could work in the first place why did you ask??

 

he asked if it was a good idea, I explained to him why in certain situations, it is a great idea. then continued on to show him using some images, then continued further using full res HD video, and a smaller version just in case. Overkill? . . . yeah pretty much, haha.

he is apparently looking for a way to hide his shameful fantasies ^_^
why not in an externall USB HD? why? why do you wish to crush his dream?

i just looked at my post, maybe a little bit overkill, but what a damn fine post. It is so ridiculously easy for me to host my own files now, I am compelled to answer every question in graphical form from now on! haha.

and people on this thread did say it may not be possible, and sounded like they had never attempted it themselves.