Jon, my advice would be just use it as a data drive that you can grab and run in an emergency. All programs can be reinstalled in the event of a crash, fire, flood...etc. It's your data or created documents that are important. The SSD will be fast but only when hooked up to your comupter (board's) sub system. That is, through your motherboard as a permanent drive with internal cables. The SSD drives are very (incredibly!) fast but the USB connection will be the slow point. For this reason you won't really find it much faster than any other type of external drive.
You could install some programs to run from it (such as Office) but it won't really be of any speed or redundancy benefit. If you lose you main computer or your main hard drive (C fails you'll still have to reinstall your programs anyway so having them installed on your SSD external drive won't help you there. The main benefit of an external SSD drive is that it's small and easy to grab and run. So, just use it as your "My Documents" (data) area where your most precious files are. This way you have a grab-and-run copy of your files.
However, in IT we had a saying about backing up data. It needs to be in at least 3 places to be safe.
1) Your main data drive
2) a back up copy of that main data drive
3) an off site back up copy of that data drive (such as the cloud - if you trust it).
For a super speedy and redundant setup I'd suggest changing your main (or all internal drives) to SSD for your main system and all your programs to run on (because they're super fast and more or less "instant") as well as have a grab-and-run external SSD as well as a regular backup of that external grab-and-run SSD. A regular back up regime (hopefully a single click "copy all" solution) will keep your data (images, documents, photos...irreplacable stuff) on two drives. If you have a fire proof safe or an office/home/second location make sure you disconnect your 2nd emergency backup drive and store it safely every time you save data to it.
For example, you could set up a closing down routine that saves a back up of your extrenal drive to a second external drive that's stored safely either off site or in a safe. At the end of the day you unplug the back up of your documents and put them in a safe place. Do this as often as you couldn;t be bothered re-making your documents. I use this principal when saving a document that I work on as well. I save often at the end of each sentence or paragraph of a word doc or every time I do something to a photoshop file.
The pain and inconvenience of having a regular and disciplined save and back up regime is obvious and will be well appreciated the next time a power spike fries your machine, your hard drive fails (100% of hard drives will fail eventually) or your laptop's stolen...etc
HTH
You could install some programs to run from it (such as Office) but it won't really be of any speed or redundancy benefit. If you lose you main computer or your main hard drive (C fails you'll still have to reinstall your programs anyway so having them installed on your SSD external drive won't help you there. The main benefit of an external SSD drive is that it's small and easy to grab and run. So, just use it as your "My Documents" (data) area where your most precious files are. This way you have a grab-and-run copy of your files.
However, in IT we had a saying about backing up data. It needs to be in at least 3 places to be safe.
1) Your main data drive
2) a back up copy of that main data drive
3) an off site back up copy of that data drive (such as the cloud - if you trust it).
For a super speedy and redundant setup I'd suggest changing your main (or all internal drives) to SSD for your main system and all your programs to run on (because they're super fast and more or less "instant") as well as have a grab-and-run external SSD as well as a regular backup of that external grab-and-run SSD. A regular back up regime (hopefully a single click "copy all" solution) will keep your data (images, documents, photos...irreplacable stuff) on two drives. If you have a fire proof safe or an office/home/second location make sure you disconnect your 2nd emergency backup drive and store it safely every time you save data to it.
For example, you could set up a closing down routine that saves a back up of your extrenal drive to a second external drive that's stored safely either off site or in a safe. At the end of the day you unplug the back up of your documents and put them in a safe place. Do this as often as you couldn;t be bothered re-making your documents. I use this principal when saving a document that I work on as well. I save often at the end of each sentence or paragraph of a word doc or every time I do something to a photoshop file.
The pain and inconvenience of having a regular and disciplined save and back up regime is obvious and will be well appreciated the next time a power spike fries your machine, your hard drive fails (100% of hard drives will fail eventually) or your laptop's stolen...etc
HTH