External HD for Laptop choices, what's best for me?

I'm getting an Asus G1S-B2 Gaming laptop this weekend. I'm in the USAF and will be using it mainly for TDY's and deployments. I need an external harddrive to use to put my movies and music on and maybe for backup purposes. I'm looking for a capacity of around 200gig but can go higher. Budget is around $200. The G1S-B2 is USB/Firewire/eSATA so any of those are fine for connecting to the laptop. I do not care if it is an external that requires external power but no having to do so would be a plus. This leaves eSATA off though.

I have a WD My Book 500GB for my main PC now. I have thought about getting another such as this one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136081
Should I?

I've also been looking at the WD 200GB Passport. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136139

Any help and advice would be appreciated.

 

Bla, dont go for those WD's or should I say WMD . Get a Seagate Free Agent since they come with a 5 year warranty and even have the Esata option on their 750 model. Usually CC, Best Buy, and Staples run deals on them all the time.

 

i have a 250GB WD Passport drive. Cost was about $140.00, black friday sale on new egg, It has been working great. Its light, portable and doesn't require any power adapter. If you want one for the go, then I would recommend this one otherwise no WD and Fantom (also had a bad experience them) , only Seagate.

 

I have three external USB drives: 160GB; 250GB; 500GB. Useful for backups, photos, etc. Be sure to get USB 2.0 (not 1.1) and 7200RPM if you can. I have only had a notebook (no desktop) for personal use for the past decade or so. Used to use a 250MB parallel port ZIP drive in the old days. Still have it somewhere ... I have a USB DVD/CD burner, too. CDs and DVDs make better deployment media.

 

I love Seagate drives due to their performance and 5 year warranty but I dislike the clunkiness fo the Free Agent with it's upside-down T shape. I need to be able to easily transport it and a clunky T in a bag is not my ideal solution (I can deal with the thick book shape of a My Book if I have to). I haven't had any problems with my current 500GB My Book the past year but then again I rarely turn it on. It's just for backups with Nortan ghost and a few misc files.

 

the wd passport 250gb usually your best bargain. if you go on ebay, you should be able to get it for $130 or less.

 

I love my Passport, its a pretty slick piece of kit. I love my MyBook too, for that matter.

The Passport actually has really good performance too, and its not really that much larger than an iPod or Zune, plus it weighs just under 4 ounces.

 

I would suggest this one, though the warranty only lasts a year. It performs surprisingly well.

 

the Seagate 5 year warranty that everybody harps on about is totally overblown. totally. go read about user's experiences with Seagate actually honoring that warranty and their CS in general.

do yourself a favor and find another brand.

i'd say forget buying a prebuilt ext drive. buy the fattest HD you can within your budget less 20 bux. use that 20 to buy an external case. pop the drive in and you're good (will require ext power if you get a 3.5" drive).

 

EDIT: oh, and DEFINITELY DO NOT buy from BEST BUY or similar unless you like getting ripped off

 

WD MyBook or the new Seagate FreeAgents, both are great.

 

Thanks for the link foxStick. I added it to my Newegg wishlist adn may end up getting it. It's really hard to beat that price.

 

I'm quite pleased with it. If it matters to you at all, I'm pretty they use WD hard drives.

 

I just thought that I would let everyone know that I went with the 250GB WD Passport. I baught it at Circuit City though just in case it was a dud since it would be easier to return. It was only a few dollars more there than at newegg. I also wanted it tonight so that I could start copying files to it before my laptop arrives this weekend. I reformated it to NTFS and have been writing files to it for about 3 hours straight now. It's stayed slightly warm and worked great so far.
I also picked up this 3.5 eSata/USB external enclosure. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145167
I have 2 80GB SATA drives my stepfather gave me that he didn't need. I'm going to reformat them and use them for backups using this.
Thanks for all the suggestions everybody.