2.5" external drive recommendation?

I'd like to buy an external 2.5" harddrive. I'm very new to Macs. It's for a Mac laptop, and ideally it will be powered by the system bus.

Is Firewire better? I've read some reviews of USB drives requiring external power, which I'd like to avoid if possible.

Thanks for any help.

I'm confused by your question. What do you mean a 2.5" external hard drive? wouldn't you be more concerned with the capacity. In terms of power. That depends on the drive. Both USB 2.0 and firewire can power a drive. usually you wont find anything bus-powered over a 160 to 200 gb capacity

Yes I'm concerned with capacity, but I know all about that part. What I don't know is what the power demands of laptop (2.5") drives are when put in external enclosures with a Mac.

As far as I know, all 160 gig laptop drives require external power when connected through the USB bus on a Mac.

I'm wondering if that's the case with firewire as well?