best external HD

I recently had my 1TB LaCie crash on me after about a year and a half of use. It wouldn't mount. The diagnosis was as follows: the needle that reads the data broke off and was grinding into the spinning drive. awesome. it was quoted at $3000 to recover.

this drive operated as a time machine only. it never left my desk. I've never had a problem with LaCie either. I'm a little baffled as to how it happened, and frustrated to say the least. Can someone please recommend me an external drive that they've personally relied on as their back-up? and let me know how long you've had it?

Also, can someone explain why it's so important to properly unmount a drive?

Thanks so much

I have a WD Mybook 1GB that I have been using for over 2 year with time machine backup and so far no issues. I recently purchased another WD Mybook that is 2GB and I am using it with time machine as well.

Things happen to machines. If it has moving parts, it will break eventually, especially if it is something that moves around and jostled - like external hard drives.

Best is subjective. Cant answer "best"

I have had good luck with WD, others havent. I have not had good luck with LeClie, others have.

If you want something that wont have an issue with read/write heads bouncing, go with a 2.5" SSD and put it in a case. no moving parts, but that doesnt mean the data cannot be corrupted.

Unmounting allows the PC to finish any delayed writes that may be queued up due to processing. Will it hurt the whole drive? Most of the time, it wont matter. Sometimes it will corrupt whatever data it happened to be writing or what was being accessed by the PC. There is, however, the possibility for full data corruption because the wrong sector gets corrupted rendering the data useless. Unmounting is best practice, ignoring it is on your own peril.