Can I run a bitcoin full node on my laptop and use a external hard drive to store the blockchain? I tried setting the datadir=/Volumes/BLOCKCHAIN (which is the path to my external drive). Then I ran bitcoind and this is the end of the output, right before it kicks my drive out and gives me a Bus error: 10.

...
2019-10-22T16:30:26Z init message: Loading block index...    
2019-10-22T16:30:26Z Opening LevelDB in /Volumes/BLOCKCHAIN/blocks/index
2019-10-22T16:30:26Z Opened LevelDB successfully
2019-10-22T16:30:26Z Using obfuscation key for /Volumes/BLOCKCHAIN/blocks/index: 0000000000000000
Bus error: 10


Is there another way I can achieve this?
If you're using USB 2.0, your problem is going to be the read/write speeds. 

Minimum requirements state that you need at least a read/write speed of 100 MB/s. 

Typical high-speed USB 2.0 connected drives only do about 40-50 MB/s.