The drive mechanism, however, is only part of the issue. The formatting software as well determines the drive's abilities. I also qualify my remarks by disclaiming extensive testing. I simply hooked up the devices, performed an hour or so of real-world activities and then arrived at some conclusions. USB is out of the question for video transfer so the lack of a USB port on the VST is irrelevant for FCP users.
Portability comes with a price tag.
There are a few things to watch in the set up of the mobile system. A less-obvious caveat is networking set up. Many times laptops will be used on a network and you might be set up to get your IP address from a DHCP server. So, watch the network setting. While the drives draw power from the Firewire bus, it really is not advisable to run the Powerbook on battery power while also powering a hard drive.