Could somebody tell me if you can run Poser on an external drive connected by FireWire or USB 2, with out any problems.

My PC set up is Pentium 4, 2.GHz, 512 DDR Memory 80Gb HD (52000rpm)
I run Poser 4.03 as well as Painter 8, Photoshop 7, Bryce 5, Vue 3 and Daz studio.
My poser runtime is 6.3Gb and i have a further 2.8Gb which i swap about when needed.
I am hoping that by putting Poser on a separate faster drive (72000rpm), the program will run faster and smoother.
Any help in this area would be gratefully received

It wouldn`t take long to try it out.

I think I'll go ahead and buy another hard drive, you can never have enough storage. Just wanted to know if Poser 4 would work on a external drive.
I didn't realize how much poser content i have accumulate over a short period of time.

I've heard that Poser works just fine on an external hard drive. My recommendation would be to put your entire Poser installation on that drive, rather than part on the internal and part on the external.

Main problem with an external drive is the file access and loading would be tremendously slower. I've got a couple external 250Gig drives I use to backup my files, including my entire Poser Directories. File access can be slower by a factor of 8-25 that I've seen depending on what you're trying to do, and what else is running.

I use Poser just as a hobby - I have my entire poser setup on a external drive from my PC - yes, it loads a little slower - but as a hobbyist, I'm not that concerned. Perhaps when I upgrade my PC and get one with a monster HD I'll consider moving Poser back.

I've been a bit concerned about having so much stuff in my computer case. I'm currently using a 20GB hard drive for Windows and everything except Poser. A 120GB hard drive has Poser, and another 30GB hard drive has my projects. Add a DVD burner, and you have lots of heat buildup. Some of my hard drives had been dying. I got a bigger case, rounded IDE cables, etc. I'm still concerned about heat. An external USB hard drive seemed to be the answer. But they do cost more.

Thanks for all your helpful replies.
I would only run Poser,on the external drive.
And maybe if all went well, i might then include Bryce 5 and Daz studio, which i use in conjunction with Poser.

I have P5. I was running the Poser program on my C: drive and all my downloads on a 200+ gig external hardrive. It worked okay both with the BUS connection and faster with my new FireWire connection. I just moved the entire Poser 5 program to the external drive a couple of days ago and I have had not problems. If it runs slower than my contually spyware/adware clogged hard drive then it is not appreciably so.

This is good to hear as I've been considering purchasing a USB external hard drive...thanks for the tips, folks.

I ran Poser on a USB2-connected external HDD for awhile, and it worked, but was slow so I moved it back to my internal HDD. But the answer to your question is "yes, it works."

Mine works fine. I have Poser on my laptop and a number of runtimes on an external hard drive. Many runtimes means faster Poser! I have split them into groups like SciFi, Fantasy, Animals, Scenery etc. Works fine for me.

I assume you have Poser 5 if you are running many runtimes.
I did'nt think you could have a number of runtimes with Poser 4 as it would just confuss it.Please tell me if i am wrong.
I just manual remove or add files to the runtime that i need for the project i am working on.But always leave the Geometries and texture files alone.

Elgyfo wrote;
Mine works fine. I have Poser on my laptop and a number of runtimes on an external hard drive. Many runtimes means faster Poser! I have split them into groups like SciFi, Fantasy, Animals, Scenery etc.

I use P5 but I don't use other runtimes, I use a folder/sub folder set up within the runtime library with categories set up like elgyfu has. As an example my pose folder has sub folders called "positional poses" and "mat poses" for instance and then these are cut into sub folders again for "V3 positional poses", "M3 positional poses", anyway you get the idea, Works for me!