best reccommendation for portable hard drive

Hey all,
I'm looking for a portable HD 80GB min to maybe 150GB, that is pretty tough and compact. I take great care of my goods, but I will be going around the world which can be a rough venture at some points, I'm guessing some times. I'd like to simply bring a small portable drive with me instead of lugging a couple spindles of 50+ backup DVD's around.
Any recommendations on the best place to look or a specific brand hd? I'd like to keep the cost under $150.
Thanks

You are presenting an interesting mix of requirements. What I would recommend is getting a Mad Dog 2.5" enclosure and a Seagate Momentus 2.5" drive off Newegg.

- You wanted a portable HD. The 3.5" external drives are portable, they are a significant amount of kit to lug around. Further they require AC power, you can not power one off USB or firewire alone.

So that put's it in the 2.5" range.

- I am recommending the Mad Dog enclosure because you can get one with both FW and USB. More importantly they come with a USB power cord so that should your computer not output enough from USB alone you can use a second USB port for power. (Firewire on my Mac has always given enough power by the way) There are cheaper ones out there, this just happens to be the one I like.

But the enclosure does not come with a drive so you will need to buy one.

- So why the Momentus? Reliability. They are the only 2.5" drives I know of with a 5 year warranty.

an 80 GB Momentus plus enclosure will run you about 150. There are cheaper options out there. IOGear is one that leaps to mind. My data is very important to me though so hard drives are not something I skimp on.