Suggestions for external HDDs.

My Macbook is starting to show signs of dying, so I want to back up its contents. Unfortunately, my external HDD just died on me, so I'm now looking to get a new one, like, right now.

Any suggestions? It has to be at least 250GB; durability is preferred. Firewire [i5c47dc200a]and[/i5c47dc200a] USB is also preferred since I have a Mac, but it's not essential.

I'll probably order it tonight or tomorrow, unless I don't get enough responses. I don't know much about hardware so I'm relying on this thread to guide me.

Thanks, y'all.

EDIT Actually, I'm probably going to buy [b5c47dc200a]two[/b5c47dc200a] external HDDs. In case there are any deals that come with buying two of 'em.

If you're comfortable plugging wires in you can make one cheaper than you can buy one.

Generally, a 500 GB SATA drive is $100 and an enclosure costs $30. If you're looking for a lower capacity drive, you can use $0.25/GB as a price comparison point, if you're looking at SATA drives. For example a 160GB drive should cost about $40, and if you search, with little effort you can find a drive that cheaply.

I've posted about external hard drives in this forum previously, I believe.

edit http//forum.freeipodguide.com/viewtopic.php?t=60578&highlight=external

I was actually planning on building my own HDD to save some money and take a babystep towards building my own electronics, but I'm sort of tired of my computer freezing every ten minutes and I want to make sure I can start to tinker with its software without worrying about losing important documents.

Basically I'm looking for durable, well-reputed companies to buy from. I could buy anything I find online but I'm tired of all my hardware dying on me within two years. (

I built an eSATA/USB hard drive with a great external enclosure and a Seagate 500GB, 32MB Cache 3.5" internal drive. Works great.

I had saved around $50 on it at the time, but I'm not sure if there are deals now for these things.

http//www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16817173040
http//www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822148288

5-year warranty on the HDD too.

The prices of ready-made externals are decreasing and are almost equal to the prices of a internal HDD + case. Personally I would say you might as well just buy a ready-made external right now.

[quote1aca6b4e09="gafdpc"]The prices of ready-made externals are decreasing and are almost equal to the prices of a internal HDD + case. Personally I would say you might as well just buy a ready-made external right now.[/quote1aca6b4e09]
I've always built my own and generally still prefer to, however you make a good point. I've always liked the style of the new WD MyBooks since they came out. The other day I was placing an order for a major system upgrade, and was about to order a 750GB drive plus an eSATA enclosure. Then I noticed Newegg had the WD MyBook Home 750GB with USB/Firewire/eSATA for I think less than $10 more than the parts I had picked out. So I bought it instead. The enclosure I was looking at was USB/eSATA, no Firewire. I move my external drives between different PC's, and prefer Firewire over USB if eSATA isn't available. I've got it all covered with that MyBook.

Thanks for the replies.

I decided to pick up a couple MyBooks per Morris's suggestion.