Best bootable external HD for Power PC iMac

Hey guys, first post. I'm looking to purchase an external hard drive, preferably a 1 TB one that I can set up in RAID 1 format, as well as be able to boot from. I was about to buy a WD My Book Studio Edition II, but then realized I wouldn't be able to boot from that as I have a Power PC. Any suggestions? I'd really like some suggestions for RAID 1 AND bootable, but if that's getting too specific, RAID 1 isn't necessarily a deal breaker.
Another problem I may run into is that I'm looking to upgrade from Tiger to Leopard soon, to take advantage of Time Machine, among other things. What's the best way to go about backing up data when an OS update is on the horizon? Back up with Tiger, do a clean install of Leopard, and then boot from the external? Then wipe the drive clean and set up Time Machine?
By the way, is the option to boot from my external HD of critical importance? If I have my hard drive cloned on there, and my system crashes, what are the options that I have if all the information is on the external drive, but it is non bootable?
Ahhhh, so confused. Sorry I have so many almost-unrelated questions, but I'm not really sure what I should be buying and what I should be doing with it. Basically, I want to upgrade to Leopard, not lose anything in the process, and then have everything backed up. Hope someone out there can help.

You can buy single drives that are 1TB externals, so I would not go with a dual drive external just to get a RAID. A single drive is more reliable than a RAID (as long as you back it up) and RAIDs still need to be backed up. Any speed advantages will not be worthwhile, since your iMac G5 and FireWire 400 ports will be not be able to take advantage of the RAID.
Any FireWire external drive should be bootable for your iMac. If you want to future-proof a bit, you can get a FireWire 800 drive and use a 800 to 400 adapter (or an 800 to 400 cable). And there are drives that have FireWire and USB 2.0, for better flexibility down the road.
OWC (macsales.com) has good external drives. If you want to build-your-own to get the exact drive mechanism you want at the price you want to pay, OWC sells most of their drive enclosures empty.
Another problem I may run into is that I'm looking to upgrade from Tiger to Leopard soon...
I think the best (in my opinion) way is to first clone the internal drive to a FireWire external drive. Then test boot from that external drive to ensure it works properly. That clone is your backup. While booted from the external, run Disk Utility and use +Repair Disk+ (not +Repair Disk Permissions+ ) on the internal drive; make sure there are no errors, or any errors are reported as being repaired.
Start up from the Leopard installation disc. Select to do an +Archive and Install+ option installation. You can do so by clicking the Options button. An +Archive and Install+ will give you a fresh Leopard system (instead of installing Leopard over your Tiger system), but retain your user accounts and settings. So your data and settings should be there when you boot Leopard, but in case something bad happens, your external clone is your backup. Make sure the internal drive is selected as the installation target and proceed. Installer will put the old system components into a folder called +Previous Systems+. After ensuring you do not need anything from the old system, you can delete that folder to free up space. After you start up into Leopard and go through the setup screens, be sure to run Software Update a few times to pick up all the updates. Then, run Disk Utility and use +Repair Disk Permissions+.
If something goes wrong, or you want to revert back the old system, start up from the external with your clone. Then clone the clone back to the internal drive. You should have your old system back, as it was before the Leopard upgrade.
Also, if the +Archive and Install+ option does not produce good results for some reason and you want to do an +Erase and Install+ (install Leopard onto a newly formatted volume), you can do so and use your clone as the source for migration of your personal data.
By the way, is the option to boot from my external HD of critical importance?
If you use Time Machine after upgrading to Leopard, you will be able to re-create your internal volume to within one hour of internal drive failure. You do so by booting off the Leopard installation disc, then selecting the command to restore the volume from Time Machine (I forget the exact wording) from the Utilities menu (go up to the menu bar at the first Installer screen). You can also run Disk Utility from the same menu, and run repairs on the internal drive.
So while it is nice to be able to boot from the external FireWire drive, it is not critical. I use an old FireWire-based iPod with a failed screen as my emergency/maintenance boot drive. My FireWire external drive can be made bootable, but I don't have any system installed on it. It's basically my personal data drive. If I did not have that iPod boot drive, I would definitely have some external drive that I can boot from for maintenance and emergencies.

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