Using photo viewer as external drive

I would like to buy an external drive (for my laptop) as back up to my current DVD storage. Ideally I would like one that the photos are viewable (am I asking too much?).
My questions are;
1) Can a photo viewer i.e. epson p-5000, gigavupro (or hopefully the canon M80 when/if launched) be used as an external hard drive with lightroom so that the photos are linked when the device is connected?
2) Does anyone currently do this, & if so, any problems?
2) Could the catalogue be on the photo viewer or just the photos?
4) Does the speed of opening or working on the photos in lightroom differ compared to a standard external hard drive?
I would preferably like answers from owners/users of such devices, but any information no matter how small will be gratefully accepted :>)
Thanks in advance,
Nigel.

I currently use a firewire 800 external portable drive that contains both the image files and the LR database. This setup works beautifully.
I also just received a photo storage gizmo (has SD/CF/ect ports, reads cards and stores them on 80GB drive but doesn't view). When attached to my laptop, its HD appears as a mounted drive, just like my firewire external. If the viewer you plan to get also mounts (you didn't mention your OS), then it should work just like any external drive.
Edit: Just one caution - most of these photo viewer/storage devices use USB which may provide less than acceptable speed, if you plan to use the device as your work drive for editing in LR.

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