Thanks man! Welcome!
It's better inside the tent because of the pre-filter, installing it outside will blow carbon into the pre-filter.
The smell that was in the garage is now completely gone though!
The tent handles the weight just fine- as long as you got a metal-framed HydroHut and not a HomeBox (which I have no clue about) it's totally fine. The bars bend, but there is no way they could come out with all that weight on them. I worry more about the straps holding the thing on the bars actually, and I shouldn't either. It's the way the pros do it, I know it's been done for years hanging the thing on the ceiling.
I would try hanging it first though, seems like the best bet considering the way it was designed to suck air through it instead of blow air out of it.