FCPX editing on internal or external drive for small media files with lots of layers and compositing ?

I am upgrading my mid 2012 MBP with an internal SSD. I have16 RAM. OS is Mavericks.
I edit videos using a mix of photos (imported layers via photoshop), short animations, short video clips. I do some very basic stop animation also. So each media file is not heavy (photos, pics, short videos), but I do a lot of layering and compositing in FCPX.  I had a lot of delays and freezes with 5400 rpm HDD… so I decided to upgrade to SSD.
Some people have told me to edit it all on my internal SSD as the media files are not big..
Everywhere else on the web I read that all media / libraries should be on an external while I edit them. But most of these contributors are using huge video files, HD, which is not my case.
So – with small media files but lots of editing and effects  / animation, should I spend the extra money on a good external 7200 rpm USB3 to edit from ? Or just use external drive for storage and not editing.
Not going for TB as I read there would not be a difference between USB3 and TB on a 7200 rpm external drive (difference is felt when using RAID, r SSD external)
Thanks!

I uses external SSD Thunderbolt for my all my editing stuff. I make small projects and only keeps one library at a time on my external drive. When finished I backup the library to another big external. I would strongly recommend external SSD Thunderbolt such as LaCie Rugged 256 GB or 128 GB. I use this setup with my Mac Pro late 2013. I never edit from internal. You could also go for RAID with 4 disks but that might be an overkill.

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