External drive boot options

Ok Mac experts, here's an easy one for you more than likely.
I'm currently running Tiger on a '2006 Model' iMac and I plan to upgrade to Snow Leopard here shortly. My thought was instead of reinstalling over my current install or doing a clean install, I'd kill two birds with one stone. I'd buy a new drive along with the new OS, replace my computer HDD, and install the new OS onto the new drive. Then I can use my current drive as a backup, extra storage, etc.
My plan was to utilize this extra storage via external drive. So, I need to buy an external drive enclosure. I would like to also have the ability to boot from this drive if need be. So, with my current drive installed in the enclosure, I would have the ability to boot from it should something go wrong, I forget to copy something over, backup, etc. What is the best option for me? Can I simply buy an external enclosure, hook it up via FireWire or USB, and have it boot up? I'm not referring to the software part - I understand all that. I just need to know about the iMac booting options and how the hardware works. I apologize in advance for being a veteran PC guy. Thanks!
Matt

Yes you can do it, and good ideas too, Firewire/400 will be faster than USB2, FW/800 almost as fast as the internal drive.
Not all FW drives are equal though, here's some to pick from...
http://eshop.macsales.com/search/firewire+drives
My Books have had far less than glowing reviews for Macs...
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2191614&tstart=0
http://x704.net/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3219&p=42023&hilit=western+digital#p420 23
http://x704.net/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2939&p=34120&hilit=western+digital#p3412 0

Similar Messages

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    coconutmelodies wrote:
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  • External drive boot

    Dumb question —
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    If your computer has FireWire ports, hold down the Option key at startup, click on the drive in the list of disks and then on the button with the straight arrow. If your computer doesn't have FireWire ports or the first suggestion didn't work, see this article for information.
    (13090)

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  • Rasping SuperDrive destroys discs. Can external drive boot, install OS?

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  • External drive boot up

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    When your drive is connected, you can select it in the Startup Disk-pane under system preferences. The next time you reboot it'll look for that drive, and if possible boot from it.
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    how do I disable time machine? I want to use my external drive as additional storage. But it mirrors everything I edit. If I remove a document, it removes it from the external drive as well.
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    Select the destination volume from the left side list.
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  • How to download all songs from my external drive into my itunes library

    I have enough Gbytes to not use an external drive for my music.
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    Hello there, Laetidela.
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    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4527
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    Pedro.

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