Ooh, that’s cool. So when I want to run StartOS, I plug the external drive into the laptop and choose to boot from there?

I recognize that a large part of the point of a home server is being online all/most of the time, especially when it comes to nodes and data backups, but just trying to get my bearings and understand what I’m doing before I do it.

Ideally it would be “plug in HD and run StartOS on laptop constantly, but the option to go back to my old laptop’s content exists if needed”. Although at that point, I may as well just back up the laptop to the external drive, install StartOS on the laptop, run that 24/7, and if I need the old computer’s data I can just connect the external drive to my current machine. Less trouble (and fewer boxes and cables) that way, I’d think.