[markw10]

I am going to be purchasing two external hard drives and want usb2.0 as well as firewire 400/800 and I want something compact. One of these will be used with my laptop and I want something compact that I can take on the go with me on my laptop case. The other will be used for hard drive backups and I want it small so it can fit inside a fireproof safe.
So far what I'm most interested in is the Lacie Rugged All Terrain drives, specifically their 120gb or newer 160gb drive. What are opinions of this?
Since I'm buying two I"m looking for the best deals I can find. Is it cheaper if I buy a good drive and then a good firewire 400/800 usb2.0 enclosure? Will this save a lot of money and if I go this route what is a good drive to go with as well as a good enclosure? It's important to have these features but be compact as well as rugged.

[Jeff]

I have been looking at these options also recently. External drives with USB2 and both Firewire 400 and 800 tend to be expensive. Another thing that I find to be very common is that the enclosures by themselves are usually of very low quality. Buying the drive and the enclosure can often be more expensive than buying a pre-boxed external hard drive.

LaCie makes a very good product (as long as you stay away from the Porsche piece of junk), but you pay premium for it. I really like the looks of the Western Digital MyBooks, which have what you want. The prices are good, the build quality is good, and they look awesome.

[Evermore]

ok i am a nub with this stuff, i am looking at the external hard drives and its either one of these two:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136022

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822154161

but will the mybook one work with a mac? like is it in the right format, plus i was thinking the lacie becuase i hear they are super good and it has firewire800 and bigger space, but it costs alot more.

[chas_m]

Since I like quiet drives, I tend to like Coolmax cases.