Is it possible to install operating system(Win 7) on an external hard drive connected over a 3.0 usb connection, and will it work at least as fast SATA 3 Gb/s hard drives ?
It depends more on the device that you are plugging in and the controller. If you're looking at external USB3 HDD's, USB3 has a theoretical limit of 5Gb/s, while SATA III has a theoretical speed of 6Gb/s. You will be limited by USB3's speed. And Ghostman 1 is right. Although you MB could boot from external HDD, you might find that your OS has problems dealing with that. Just bought My new Horize laptop. I'm so proud of it so far. Intel Core i7-960 3.2-3.4Ghz Processor Innovation Cooling IC Diamond 24 Carat for CPU + GPU 8GB 1333Mhz RAM (2x 4GB Configuration) 500GB 7200rpm Seagate Hard Disk nVidia Geforce GTX560M 1.5GB GDDR5