[stimpee]

I used to swear by Seagate but we've had a bunch of them fail recently (5 in the last 3 months) at work. As for external HD's you never know what brand of HD people like LaCie or Iomega are gonna put INSIDE the box. For that reason i'd go with someone like Western Digital and their MyBook series, or buy your own empty external box and put in a WD or Samsung drive.

One thing to take into cosideration is the platter density / number of platters. The more platters the hotter the drive gets. e.g. a 400gb drive with 3x 133gb platters is cooler than a 4x 100gb platter drive.Less heat means less failures usually.

I'd probably now buy a SATA II drive of about 400gb-500gb and an external box with USB/Firewire/eSATA on the back. Something with 16mb cache, brand of WD / Samsung or maybe Seagate (yeah i know). Also check the manufacturers warranty period. Seagate now offer a 5 year warranty. Not sure about the others.

Note that if you buy a readymade external you'll most likely get an ATA drive with either 2mb or 8mb cache inside. Maxtor seem to be the cheapest so if you'll probably find one of theirs inside the cheaper you go.

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