[Nobody]

Hello everyone,
So here's the question: I'm about to purchase a kickin', 1.5 Ghz PB with 1 Gig of ram. I want to install Final Cut Pro on it. Until now, I have used Final Cut on a desktop, and always used either a separate firewire drive or a RAID array for my work/scratch space--separated from my OS drive and my FCP application itself. But on a Powerbook... you see where I'm going? Should I partition my drive before I install FCP, or should I just load the thing, work on projects on the same drive, (make backups regularly, natch...) and then off-load the work as necessary? And also: does regular video editing on the Powerbook cause problematic disc fragmentation? On my desktop workspace I routinely clear the drive and start with a fresh disc. But I'd like to not have to do as much prep on my PB. I've read again and again that OSX is not prone to significant fragmentation problems, but with specific regard to video editing I thought I'd ask.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Eelseyes

[Ronaldinho]

Your best bet would be to use a firewire drive for media storage.
Is there some reason why that's not an option?
-Ron

[Nobody]

Well, it is an option, I suppose. But I guess I was just wondering if it was reasonable to expect to be able to do any serious work on a PBook if I didn't have a separate drive with me--say on an airplane, or a client's office, where it might not be the most convenient to set up another device and cables to connect 'em. Certainly having an outboard firewire drive makes sense for most media and the actual workspace, but they're not always available (it's just a thing about the place where I work...)...
Thanks for the respose, tho...
Do you successfully use FCP on a laptop?
Eelseyes

[contralj]

Though I would recommend the firewire drive setup when it's convenient, it's not only possible but painless to edit your video with FCP on the PB hard drive. There's no need to partition. Though you could do such a thing, two hard drives with 35GB capacity (if that much) might be a problem for larger video projects and files.
Realize that it will be best to max out your RAM, and that the PB hard drive is somewhat slower than a desktop or firewire hard drive.
I see you are just a Metro trip away there in Greenbelt; let me know if you need more assistance.

[Southern_Gent]

I run FCP on my TiBook with great success. I do use my internal drive in some instances where I must be portable, but usually transfer everything to my external as soon as possible to avoid taking up too much space on my internal.
I have seen some small firewire drives (Firelite), that are bus powered and have been tempted to try this solution. They are a little pricy though at $300+ for 80gb. Might be cheaper to lug my external around.