I have a 500 gb Freeagent - it's a POS, overheats within minutes, ventilation is on the bottom.....geniuses at Seagate don't know that heat rises. It's in a drawer.....

I have 2 MyBooks (500gb) and 2 Maxtors (200gb & 100gb) and a 400gb Passport

The Maxtors are older (aluminum cases) but work great. I use them mainly for photography storage.

The MyBooks are newer (one I got in December) but they work great also. They are strictly for backups.

The Passport I keep with my laptop and it contains duplicates of my music & photos as well as backups of downloaded installation programs I've bought or collected.

Recommendation is MyBook using esata but not if portability is important. While they are external, they are really not meant to be lugged around.....for that you need a 2.5" like the Passport

or

instead of a new external case just get a hot swap box on esata like this Newegg

How much do you want for the Freeagent? I always wanted somthing like that

Thanks for all the great advice. When I said portable, I meant being able to move it around if necessary but not portable like my WD passport. I just don't want hard drives inside a PC.

I will probably go with the My Book, I would like the network version but seems a bit expensive for me.

The Drobo is the coolest storage concept I have ever seen but a bit outof my price league for now. I will however consider it for future replacements.

BTW, what does POS mean?

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Firewire 800 is faster than USB, but is usually found on MAC's 

Firewire 400 isn't. ESATA blows them all away. Newer PC's include ESATA or you can get an ESATA card pretty cheap.

USB runs about 480Mbps (bits per sec not bytes) that would be 60MB/s actual rates will drop depending on load on the USB hub

Firewire 400 is 400Mbps, that would be 50MB/s doesn't have the hub loading problem that USB does so it probably "seems" faster.

ESATA runs at 300MB/s (that's 2,400Mbps)

I always wondered: where does the term "MAC's" come from?

I use the same disks with Firewire 400 and occasionally USB 2. Firewire 400 is definitely faster.

I forgot to mention, while all these other connects are faster, I will be depending on USB because I plan on using this drive to watch movies on my TV, am considering that Western Digital TV HD Media Player to go with it.

BTW, a question. Is it possible to have a hard drive connected thru both a usb and an ethernet at the same time? Just wondering.

MAC has to do with networking, while Mac refers to the Macintosh. Every Ethernet Adapter has an MAC, which is the adapter's address aka identifier.

Drive wise, I would build my own, after careful consideration of hdds and cases for them.

MAC = Machine Address Code

Mac = Apple Macintosh

It's all a question of caps

Look at that, i ask about drives and learn about MACs and Macs. that why I love this site.

there's always the 5 finger discount, the grandmother discount and the can I borrow this" but never give it back discount.

I just got two Western Digital 1 TB My Book drives, one the Essential Edition (USB only, write transfer rate about 25.8 GB/s) the other a Home Edition (eSATA, write transfer rate about 48.4 GB/s). I use them both strictly for backups and the drives are always on.

These things run HOT (case is passively cooled, no fans), often going up to 48º C (with 19/20º C ambient) just sitting there idle! With temperatures like these, it's no wonder My Books are getting a bad rep: the drives and interface electronics must simply fry during Summer.

I solved the excessive temperature problem by purchasing a relatively cheap Nox Sirocco notebook cooler with 3 fans: placed the two My Books on top and tapped shut the grill holes around them, forcing the cold air propelled by the fans to exit via the hard drive enclosures. Result: both My Books now run at 28º C, which is even lower than the temperatures of some of my internal hard drives.  

Also, if you choose eSATA, be warned that these drives do NOT include an eSATA cable, you will have to purchase one separately. Furthermore, with some cables the metal part of the connector is too short and seems to plug into the drive, but isn't really making full contact. This is a common problem, and if it happens to you and the drive is not recognized by Windows, cut 3-4 mm of the plastic around the cable's connector to expose a bit more metal - that worked for me.

Another common issue, at least in eSATA mode, is that these drives are hard-coded to sleep after being idle for 10 minutes. Unfortunately they then take too long to spin up and end up being hard dismounted by Windows (i.e. they disappear from My Computer). Only way to get them back is by rebooting the system. I solved this issue by making a small applet that copies - then deletes - itself to the drive every 5 minutes, thus reseting the idle timer and preventing the drive from automatically spinning down.