I will be doing daily 1-2 minute video blogs from a road rally (http://think.mtv.com/ChallengeX08/) and everything I need camera, laptop, ect. I have to be able to carry.
I bought a new laptop (2.6 processor, 4 G ram) and all advice I can find recommends using alt drives in Vegas to store clips and for scratch space.
I have a 80G USB external but would I be better off with a couple of flash drives (which I notice come in up to 32G variety)? I don't expect any clips to be bigger than 4G.

Can you explain your workflow a little more?

First off, what format are you shooting on?