I have a two drawer Firmtec enclosure with 1 TB at RAID 0 which is really fast and works very well. I would strongly suggest something like this, and I would not partition it. Get a cheaper smaller FW drive if you want a clone or Timemachine backup, as with the Firmteck card you will still have a FW port for your backups. Also, suggest 4 gigs RAM.
Have a wonderful day.