External drive question

Being new at this and not 100% clear on what it is I am reading at various threads and Google search, I would like to ask a couple of questions.

We have several Macs in our household, all running Snow Leopard.
(Not quite ready for Lion.)

Instead of buying a Windows netbook, which comes with Windows 7 Starter edition, I am looking at Parallels 7 and Windows 7 Home Premium, which can be bought as a bundle for a reasonable price.
(What prompted all this is rooting our Android phones (2.3.5), which turns out is a heck of a lot easier in Windows environment.)

Due to space constraints and to keep Windows completely separate from whichever machine we end up running Parallels/Windows, I would like to use an external drive dedicated to this. We have numerous OWC externals with Firewire 800/400/Sata/USB port options and capacity ranging from 300 mb - 2 TB.
(But running Windows on multiple Macs is not the goal.)

Should I create a bootable drive, complete with Snow Leopard, Parallels and Windows 7?
Can install only Parallels and Windows on the external and store/install all Windows related stuff on the external?
I also see mention of Parallels/Windows on a usb flash drive, with necessary storage on an external drive.

I did spend time searching the forum and elsewhere, but maybe I did not use the correct search terms.

Thank you for your help.

 

followup

(Administrators: Please close or move this thread if I am cluttering up the forum.)

Been re-reading the thread below over and over, which I found before posting my question.
http://tinyurl.com/6w3k3fp

It is taking some time to understand some of the technical pointers but the thread seems to address my questions.

So far what I get is;
Install Parallels on the internal boot drive.
It should be possible to install and store everything else on an external drive dedicated to all things related to running Windows 7 under Parallels.
Then point Parallels to the external drive for running Windows 7.

The confusing part is mention of Boot Camp and whether or not an external drive is formatted at Fat-32.
I do have one older Fat-32 formatted external drive that was used when I had to access image files stored on it with Windows and Mac OS machines, but in my case I do not want to use this, especially if I want to keep it simple and simply run Parallels and Windows 7 using an external drive.
Otherwise our external drives are all formatted for use with Macs.

Also, still a bit confused over whether or not Firewire 400/800/SATA connection can be used with the external when running Windows 7 loaded on an external drive.
Came upon several mentions of USB issues, etc. but I am not sure if I understand.

Sorry to pester you with this.

 

Administrators - Please delete this thread.
After spending more time reading the http://tinyurl.com/6w3k3fp thread and others, I think I (finally) understand several different options in installing and running P7, Windows 7 and also possibly incorporating Boot Camp in the mix.
And it is quite understandable why nobody responded to this newby and unnecessary thread.
Thank you.

 

EcM,

Not so fast, please - I have the same question that you did, similar anyway. I will read the thread that you specifically mention, but what are "the others" that you talk about in your last post?

I'm glad that you seem you have successfully completed your quest for knowledge, but I'm just beginning!

Thanks.

 

"others" would be threads/comments I found at other sites which I have not kept track of.
The particular thread I mentioned does cover 95% of my questions, but initially it was all Latin to me and took a while to digest the virtualization scheme on a Mac.
Most folks here are well beyond my level, but I must say most also must have had a beginning point when they were new at this such as we are.
At the moment I am overloaded with information, never having had any reason to look into messing with Windows, but I do have a clearer picture to point me in the right direction.
In the end, it took a lot of reading what's already posted here and elsewhere to answer my own questions...

 

Thanks for your quick reply. I've found a few additional threads, and I think things are starting to make sense to me. I'll find out when I try!