You get a whopping USB 3.0 connectivity, and the drive is formatted for MAC OS X, so reformatting will be required for Windows. With a 3 year limited warranty, you can be sure that this drive is going to stand the test of time, and should anything go wrong, it’s easy to simply return it for a refund.

Looking for a way to install and run OS X on an external hard drive? This can be useful for a couple of different reasons. Firstly, it allows you to run another copy of OS X without needing any additional Mac computer.

Also, since you can run a full copy of OS X on the external drive, it can be used for troubleshooting purposes on other Macs or it can be as a kind of virtual OS X. I’ve already written about how you can install OS X in VMware Fusion, but that takes up space on your Mac. Using an external drive, you can save space on your Mac, though it might be a bit slower if you are using USB 2.0.

In this article, I’ll walk you through the requirements and steps to install OS X onto an external hard drive.

Format External Hard Disk

The first thing you’re going to need to do is format the external hard drive properly. The file format has to be Mac OS X Journaled and you have to use the GUID partition map. To do this, open Disk Utility and connect the drive to your Mac.

Under External in the left hand menu, click on your external hard drive and then click on the Erase button. Make sure you backup any data before you erase the drive. When you click Erase, a dialog will pop up where you can configure some options.

Give your drive a name, choose OS X Extended (Journaled) for Format and GUID Partition Map for Scheme. It should only take a minute or two for the drive to be erased and reformatted. Now your drive is ready for OS X.

Install OS X

There are two ways you can install OS X on to your external hard disk: by reinstalling OS X from the OS X Utilities repair screen or by downloading OS X from the App Store and running the installer. I’ll show you both methods in case one isn’t working for you.

The easiest way is to download OS X from the App Store. Once you open the App Store, you’ll see a link on the right for the latest version of OS X (El Capitan as of this writing).

Go ahead and click the Download button to start downloading the installer. Note that if you already have that version of OS X installed, you’ll see a popup message appear asking if you still want to continue or not. Just click Continue.

Once it has been downloaded, just double-click the installer, which will be located in the Applications folder.

Keep clicking past the license agreement, etc., until you get to the screen that asks you which disk to install OS X on. By default, it is set to MacBook.

Click on the Show All Disks button and you’ll see an icon for the different disks and partitions on the Mac. I named my external hard drive OS X and that shows up in the middle.

You can also tell it’s an external hard disk because it uses the icon with the orange hard drive. Click Continue and then follow the instructions to complete the installation. Note that your computer may restart during the install and you don’t have to do anything. OS X will automatically continue installing onto the external hard drive rather than booting up to your internal version of OS X.

At the end of this article, I’ll show you how to boot up to the external hard drive, so skip down if you ended up using the App Store method. Note that by default, the Mac will start booting up directly to the external hard drive until you change it.

The second method to install OS X is to restart the Mac and press and hold the COMMAND + R keys. This will load up OS X Recovery.

The OS X Utilities screen will appear and here you want to click on Reinstall OS X. Again, you’ll go through some basic screens, but when you get to the hard disk screen, click on Show All Disks again.

Using this method, you’ll have to login using your Apple ID and password so that the entire OS X installer can be downloaded off of Apple’s servers. Whichever method you choose, it will take anywhere from 15 to 30+ minutes to install OS X onto your external hard drive.

While OS X is installing, your computer will restart a couple of times. Note that when it finally boots into OS X, that is the version running off your external drive. To switch back and forth between the internal and external drive, you have to restart your computer and hold down the OPTION key.

When you do that, you should see at least four icons. In my case, I have five because I have Windows installed using Boot Camp. Anyway, the grey MacBook and Recovery 10.11.2 icons are for my internal OS X and the orange OS X and Recovery 10.11.3 are for the version installed on my external drive.

Use the arrow keys to select which drive to boot from and then simply press Enter. If you have a newer Mac and a USB drive that supports USB 3.0, everything should run fairly fast. Overall, it’s a fairly straight-forward process and took me less than an hour to get everything working. If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Enjoy!

Buffalo’s DriveStation™ is an easy to use 1-drive storage and backup solution. It features a sleek, attractive chassis with noise reduction technology and flexible positioning. Simply plug it into a USB device for an easy addition of storage and backup.

Overview

The DriveStation is an easy to use, 1-drive storage solution for the easy addition of external storage to any device using a USB port. With USB 3.0 support and backward compatibility with USB 2.0, DriveStation works with almost any PC or Mac computer and provides interface speeds up to 5 Gbps.

• USB 3.0 offers universal connectivity for PC and Mac® computers
• Schedule automatic backups for PC computers with Buffalo Backup Utility
• Time Machine® support offers scheduled backups for protecting Mac computers
• Sleek chassis can be positioned vertically or horizontally for efficient use of space

EASY TO USE STORAGE
With terabytes of storage, DriveStation provides a reliable, easy to use storage solution to quickly expand the capacity of your PC and Mac computers with universal USB 3.0 plug-and-play.

EASY SCHEDULED BACKUP
DriveStation is perfect for backing up your important files. Disaster and hard drive failures can occur unexpectedly; don't leave your important files and treasured memories in the hands of chance. Schedule regular backups for your PC with Buffalo Backup Utility or use Time Machine for your Mac. Protect all of your data, down to the last byte.

FLEXIBLE POSITIONING
DriveStation features a sleek, attractive chassis that can be positioned vertically or horizontally, adapting to the location it is used in for efficient use of space. Stand it upright on your home office desktop or lay it flat below your TV as part of your media center.

BUFFALO TOOLS
Buffalo Tools is a feature-rich suite of optional software included on the Buffalo DriveStation. Any or all of the following components of Buffalo Tools may be installed on Windows® PCs.

• Buffalo's Backup Utility is a featured backup software for Windows PCs and can be used to back up one or multiple computers with a single Buffalo external hard drive.
• eco Manager is an energy efficiency tool used to conserve energy and reduce battery consumption by regulating the power usage of the hard drive, cutting power to the drive during extended periods of inactivity.
• TurboPC includes two components to enhance file transfer performance with external hard drives. It also includes TurboCopy which provides additional system adjustments to increase performance substantially.
• SecureLock software for Windows® provides complete control of the data encryption on your Buffalo external hard drive, providing password protection and software data encryption.

Specifications

* 480 Mbps and 5 Gbps are the maximum transfer rates derived from the specifications of the Universal Serial Bus 2.0 and 3.0. Actual transfer rates will vary depending upon environmental factors. Data rates, features and performance may vary based on the configuration of your system and other factors.

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