After much research, I am more confused than ever.

I use Outlook 2003 to manage my entire life. And I sync it to my PDA so
that I can take my life with me. It really works for me and I want to stay
with it if possible. I have a memory impairment (with my brain...not the
computer lol), so this sytems has literally changed my life.

For instance, when I'm researching something online, talking on the phone to
a customer service rep, or making an appointment for one of my kids, I log
everything into Notes on Outlook. It makes it super simple to do a search to
find that stuff later.

I also use Outlook to email myself anything that I need to document and
access later such as product orders, or remodeling ideas etc. And I also
email information to Outlook from my Treo when I'm out and I see something I
want to keep track of, such as the price of a home for sale with the address,
contact info, and notes about its appearance etc. Or while at a doctors
appointment, I'll email myself the doctors prescription directions etc so I
can have them in my system 2 months later when I forget everything she told
me at my appointment. Or I'll be watching something on TV, and I'll learn
something about saving money in taxes etc, so I'll email that to myself for
later when I'm doing my taxes. I put very descriptive information in the
subject line of every email so that I can search for it easily with just the
subject.

I don't sync my email with the Treo because I don't really need it as I know
I can search for it later on Outlook. But I sync everything else, Contacts,
Notes, etc.

I need to find a way to protect my data, WITHOUT slowing my computer down to
a crawl (that's when it can crawl at all) and without the constant hangs I'm
having now.

If I were to run Outlook on an external drive, would I be able to use it the
same way that I use it now on my local hard drive?

How can I use Outlook and have immediate access to everything on it without
taking up all my disk space or slowing down my laptop?

If I archive my Outlook data, will it still be immediately accessible and
searchable? It wouldn't make sense for me to have to import data back into
Outlook - that would defeat the whole purpose of my system.

I do have an online storage subscription with about 5 gigs, but because I'm
on a wireless network I sometimes loss all connectivity for hours at a time -
ususally when I need it most.

I can spend up to $500 to get this accomplished. Anymore than that and it
might be more worthwhile to just get a new laptop (mine is about 3.5 years
old).

Thank you so much!