Can i install application on External HD

I'm using my my Macbook Pro for video editing and obviously i'm using up my 160Gig HD fairly rapidly.

I'm looking at getting a WD Mybook (500 Gig) for backups and also for keeping archived video projects on.

I also have Final Cut express which is taking up huge space on my disk and was wondering would i be able to run it as an application on the external HD? If so would it make much difference using Firewire over USB to run the app or could USB do just as well? Obviously USB only models are cheaper than Firewire versions.

Any advice would be great as i want to buy this today.

I have spent about a week doing all the research for an external drive, although have not bought it yet. Still down to two choices for me. you can read my reviews here if interested (the MyBook is one of my two remaing choices.)

Since I am fairly new to the Mac world, don't know about installing FCE to your external though I don't know why you wouldn't be able to. According to Apple's tech specs, FCE only takes up 500MB. While Soundtrack and LiveType take up 16GB. Specifically states these two can be installed to a separate disk. Know all your video can be on a separate disk.

As to your 2nd question, from all my research and speed tests I looked at, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of difference between FW400 and USB. There is a fairly significant difference with FW800, particularly with editing video and transferring large files back and forth. Probably studied at least half a dozen speed tests at the time.
Most tests showed FW400 and USB about the same point. Moving to a RAID0 setup with these two, you could expect only about a 6-8% increase.
Moving to FW800 consistently gave better than a 33% increase and in some cases up to 65% increase in speed.
FW800 RAID0 provided up to 100% increase vs. USB or FW400. At the price difference between them, if you have any interest in reducing your work time, FW 800 is the only way to go for an external to a MBP at this time.

Any external FW800 can be hard to find in the retail stores though (at least here in Dallas). Newegg has pretty good price at $223 while the
USB version is only $160. It really boils down to time vs. money. My recommendation - if you don't have the extra $$ for the FW800 and you don't have to have it today - save up that extra $60.

bobtomay said:

As to your 2nd question, from all my research and speed tests I looked at, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of difference between FW400 and USB....

Click to expand...

I've found a very significant difference in speed between Firewire 400 and USB 2.0 in actual practice.

I use SuperDuper to back up my MacBook and iBooks with this external enclosure, which has both USB 2.0 and Firewire 400. The backups run 2 to 3 times longer on the USB ports than the Firewire. Since this is pretty much a straight data dump, I think this can be used as a good benchmark.

I also have this enclosure and this one--- and the situation is the same here, Firewire is faster than USB.

If you have a choice, choose Firewire 400. And if it's an option, Firewire 800.

You cannot put Final Cut on the external hard drive, but you can put all the "extra" things (LiveType's vector stuff and things like that) on your external hard drive.

Do not buy a USB hard drive and expect it to work well for video editing, while USB may be able to run a 480mbps you will never reach that speed (you'll probably get around half that). FireWire on the other hand always runs at 400mbps, making it MUCH better for video.

Also as caribiner23 has said, SuperDuper! is a great backup application and if you buy it you can set up scheduled backups and smart backs ups (as opposed to erasing your drive and copying everything over again).

If you plan to get into High Definition video editing I suggest you go with a FireWire 800 drive, or buy a SATA card for your Express34 slot and use a serial ATA drive.