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User profile for user: lippyloggy
lippyloggy Author
User level: Level 1
19 points

Best way to run 2007 MBP off an external drive?

When the content of my iTunes library would no longer fit on my 500GB internal hard drive, I decided to buy a MacBook Air and convert my 2007 Macbook Pro into a desktop.


  1. I bought two 1.5GB external drives.
  2. Connected one to the other with an 800 Firewire cable.
  3. Connected that to my Macbook Pro with another 800 Firewire cable.
  4. Opened Disk Utility, and formatted the two drives into a single "striped" RAID drive.
  5. Installed Mac OS on the newly formed 3GB external drive.
  6. Connected the Macbook Pro to a 32 inch external monitor.
  7. And have been running it as my desktop/server ever since.


Now a friend of mine wants me to help her do the same thing.


Only in the two years since I did it, the ports and the external drives have improved. With USB 3.0 pcmcia cards, and inexpensive RAID external drives (e.g. the Caldigit VR).


So my question is...


What would be today's best way to run Lion off an external hard drive? Two external drives striped? One CalDigit drive? And which would be the fastest connection to run Lion OS? USB 3.0 via pcmcia card? 800 Firewire?


Thanks in advance!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.7)

Posted on Apr 9, 2012 2:54 PM

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User profile for user: MadisonP
MadisonP
User level: Level 5
4,832 points

Posted on Apr 9, 2012 10:25 PM

Greetings,


It depends on what type of options your friend has on her computer (Type in the model name or the serial number here: http://support.apple.com/specs/).


New model macs do not have USB 3.0 or PCMCIA slots. Apple offers Thunderbolt on current model line computers which is faster than FW 800: http://www.apple.com/thunderbolt/. While thunderbolt drives are still relatively expensive, you can't beat the speed (its pretty darn good).


If your friend does not have a thunderbolt port on her computer then FW 800 would be the way to go. If she doesn't have FW 800 and doesn't have an expresscard slot then I wouldn't attempt this at all as that leaves FW 400 or USB both of which would be intolerably slow in my opinion.



Hope that information helps.

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User profile for user: MadisonP
MadisonP
User level: Level 5
4,832 points

Apr 9, 2012 10:25 PM in response to lippyloggy

Greetings,


It depends on what type of options your friend has on her computer (Type in the model name or the serial number here: http://support.apple.com/specs/).


New model macs do not have USB 3.0 or PCMCIA slots. Apple offers Thunderbolt on current model line computers which is faster than FW 800: http://www.apple.com/thunderbolt/. While thunderbolt drives are still relatively expensive, you can't beat the speed (its pretty darn good).


If your friend does not have a thunderbolt port on her computer then FW 800 would be the way to go. If she doesn't have FW 800 and doesn't have an expresscard slot then I wouldn't attempt this at all as that leaves FW 400 or USB both of which would be intolerably slow in my opinion.



Hope that information helps.

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User profile for user: lippyloggy
lippyloggy Author
User level: Level 1
19 points

Apr 9, 2012 11:01 PM in response to MadisonP

Thanks for the reply!


Yes, she has the same model Macbook Pro as mine - late 2007 - which includes a FW 800 port, an express card slot, but no thunderbolt. And a month ago, I would have just gone with the FW 800, but after checking the benchmarks on CNET (FW 800 = 800 Mb/s vs USB 3.0 = 5 Gb/s) I thought a USB 3.0 express card might be worth the extra hundred bucks.


Any idea if this rediculous leap in speed would make a difference?

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Best way to run 2007 MBP off an external drive?

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