Lacie is a good brand.
Lot of folks @ apple USA uses that. That's what I used to recommend my customers to get.
Other models:
The brick is not bad but it's not very 'portable' nor stylish. It's good enough for 'business use' or 'creative professional use'.
The one I like most is th porche style one. It smaller one is good because you can put it in your computer bag without consuming much space. I have purchased two of them before and I love it.
If you want to use it for just backing up itune library or storing data files, get the USB 2.0 version. It's cheaper.
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10820
If you want to be able to boot off the portable drive, get the USB+Firewire version.
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10819
It's a bit more expensive but i think it's worthwhile. Of course you will need to setup a bootable drive first. The easiest way to setup a bootable drive is to use carbon copy cloner.
Bruce
Thanks Bruce, I think I'll take you up on that advice! But I'll keep things simple and just get the USB 2.0. I don't see my self booting from the hard-drive just yet!!!
Personally I have had disasterous experiences with Lacie and their drives. The distributor in HK told me that it is a known fault they run too hot and cook themselves. I had 4 of them completely die in about 12 months and they don't honour their warranties.
They said some sticker on the case was missing which voided the warranty. There was no sticker at time of purchase and Lacie themselves don't even bother to reply to emails on the subject.
All in all, I would say well clear of any of their products.
Saw some of these funky Lego-look drives recently but in view of you recent bad experience I will steer away. Thanks for the heads up.
Yeah they do look good fun. I had some of the Lego ones and also some of the brushed metal covered Porsche ones - which I also thought looked pretty slick.
I ended up buying 4 of those, none lasted over a year. I was a bit suspicious as they run extremely hot.
A search on Google showed it to be a common complaint that they cook themselves. I went to see the distributor with a bag of dead drives in Kowloon Bay (opposite that new huge Redbox mall which was under construction at the time).
They annoyed me somewhat as they kept me waiting around for an hour and a half before coming out and telling me to go and find somewhere for lunch for another hour and a half.
I suggested that they call when they are fixed - which they did 3 hours later - to say they were not going to fix or replace them due to the 'missing sticker' issue. Why it took them 5 hours to think up that excuse I don't know why.
Having spoken with them they said a large number of Lacie drives have been brought in with the same issue of cooking themselves and suggested I don't buy that brand in future. Not great to hear from the distributor!!!
Despicable of such a well known brand. Your encounter betters my experiences with O2 and that was something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemies.
I only use mine for back-up storage, so it doesn't get hot... and for that use, it's perfect, because it stores away easily...