Guys, I thought this was cool, just wanted to share!
When i say that a powered drive may be better, it's not so much speed that I was thinking of, but moreso consistency and reliability over USB powered. Thing is, I never had an issue with booting/running Ubuntu on a portable, and obviously you are running Win 7 okay, so maybe there isn't a lag issue with the newer USB 3.0 drives.
I agree with you, Jim, a laptop needs to be clutter free when out and about, and I usually take any additional files, etc on a couple of 64gb sticks, so the powered HDD was more an in-home thing for dual booting, which is not something I'd imagine finding a need to do while at the drs, etc.