making sense of it all
 

These questions will help me and hopefully others decide which HD to buy and backup method to use as I noticed many same questions and various answers. I will put in brackets the answers I think are right.

1. Bootable HD interface to use for emergency (Firewire?).
2. What type of file system should the HD be formatted to? (HFS?)
3. Size of HD, should it be the same as parent or can be larger?
4. Can the HD be partitioned? For instance, one partition with the exact size of backed up drive (host) and one partition for any other usage (i.e video editing etc,)?
5. Does it really matter if I use Oxford chipset?
6. I own a good old EzQuest Cobra enclosure and would like to swap the HD instead of buying a new and more expensive Lacie or WD enclosures. Should it be a problem? By the way, I think they use the oxford 911 chipset:
http://www.keycodemedia.com/pdf/cobradrives.pdf
7. Is the capability of turning on/ off the Ext HD done by SuperDuper! Or a build in feature of the ext HD?

Thanks,

migo

To answer the questions (by number):

1. FireWire.
2. "Mac OS Extended" or "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" (HFS+)
3. Can be the same, larger never hurts.
4. Yes. Make sure you use the proper partition scheme for your Mac: see the "Options" button in Disk Utility's Partition tab.
5. Yes.
6. I don't know.
7. We don't control drive power at all.