External HD recommendations?

So somehow I've managed to fill up all my drives, and now seek yet another. I'd like some advice based on a few criteria:

- 750GB minimum
- No external power supply (usb powered)
- reliable/quiet/ not a seagate

I'm not too worried about eSATA, though the esata+usb combos would be a bonus. As for price, cheaper is always welcome but I don't mind paying a bit extra for quality. So far all I can find is a WD drive but there have got to be more out there...

 

nothin wrong with WD, they make good drives. i take it you know about their passport drives. i think they have a 1Tb passports now. omega are another one, but i dunno how reliable they are. you thought about replacing your internal? or adding another one instead of your optical drive?

 

I'm going to end up buying a new comp before I replace the internal... the external is mostly for transferring everything between the (soon) two and backup.

Would it be any better to look for internal drives and stick one in an external enclosure? A lot of enclosures seem to only support up to 500GB Some of the comments about the WD's included software are a little unsettling.

 

there is a software and firmware update for the WD drives which make them into a standard plain drive. took about 10-15 mins to do but at least you don't have to format them to ntfs like previous drives.

 

Ended up going with the WD 1TB Elements drive... 1TB for $140 sounded pretty reasonable. It's basically a passport drive in a bigger housing and without any crapware installed, now for the task of copying 700GB of data

Only thing I would've liked is for a longer cable, though the cable it comes with seems sturdier than my other externals. It's about 1ft long compared to the 3' standard ones.