Best External Hard Drives?

I’m running Vista Home Premium, SP2, Intel Core Duo 2,13GHz, 232 GB H/D capacity and 2 GB RAM.

I have a gift certificate for Best Buy and would like to put it towards an external hard drive for back up purposes. I’d like to stay in the $100 range. One Geek Squad rep said he recommends the smaller drives because they’re USB without an AC/DC adapter to plug in. They don’t have that many external drives in the stores so I could use the certificate on the web site. They only had one SATA drive in stock with the adapter plug in.

Also, I don’t shoot any video, just photos.

Is a USB drive fine or should get the larger one?

Any suggestions on good brands/models in that price range?

Thanks,
Mike

Do you need it to be easily portable? The USB powered ones tend to be quite a bit more expensive than the equivalent powered one, as they all use they more expensive 2.5" drives - you can get a 1TB powered one for less than a 500GB USB powered one. I generally build my own 3.5" external drives by buying an external case an using whatever spare drive I have to hand. If I was going to buy one of those portable drives, I would go for Iomega at the moment.

Me, I use the $140 Seagate Free Agent 1.5 TB myself.
Yesterdays price as I got mine on sale for $110.
I keep mine in the shipper box it came in and has got close to 15,000 miles on it in a car.
So, I have to plug into the wall, it does save of the laptop battery.

What is more important to you; portability or performance/size?

2.5" drives use 5400rpm drives. They can usually be powered by USB bus alone, but some need 2 USB ports.

3.5" drives use faster 7200rpm drive with larger platters. Much cheaper per GB. Requires a power outlet

Thanks for the info! Mine doesn't have to be portable so I'll go with the one that uses a power outlet as it's for a desktop.

Mike