[sdilley14]

I'm in the market for a new external drive. Ideally, I'd like something that . . .

is reasonably priced. I'm looking in the $100-$150 range.
is fast. I'm thinking some sort of firewire drive?
has the storage space I'm looking for. About 160GB should do
has a nice form factor.
doesn't require an AC power source.

The closest thing I can come up with as far as storage, price, form factor, and power solution goes, is the Western Digital Passport. I like the design, portability, and the fact that it's powered through USB. My only concern is that it is USB 2.0 rather than firewire. So I'm wondering if there is a drive out there similar to the Passport (similar size, shape, power source, etc.) that is firewire rather than USB and falls in my desired price range.

[mduell]

Firewire has better bandwidth than USB2 (although that's somewhat mitigated by the relatively low speeds of 2.5" drives), but USB2 is cheaper so you have more money to spend on a bigger (which translates into faster because of higher density) and/or faster spinning (faster transfers and lower latency) disk.

Pick an enclosure you like:
USB2+FW400 for $35
USB2+FW400 for $43
USB2 for $22
USB2 for $20
USB2 for $19
USB2 for $10

And either the Hitachi 160GB for $90 (3 year warranty) or the Seagate 160GB for $110 (5 year warranty).

Assembly takes a screwdriver or two and about 5 minutes.

edit: Huh, I managed to cover both ends of your price range ($90+10 and $110+35).

[peeb]

I have the first enclosure on that list and the second drive - recommend both.

[EndlessMac]

Originally Posted by mduell 

And either the Hitachi 160GB for $90 (3 year warranty) or the Seagate 160GB for $110 (5 year warranty).

I know that a lot of people like enclosures but when was the last time people checked out prices for pre-built external hard drives? The drive I got was a Seagate 250 GB, USB 2.0, 7200 RPM for $90 from Amazon. It also has a 5 year warranty so it's obvious Seagate knows about the competition with enclosures. It seems like the better deal to me but it is AC powered and USB 2 only so it doesn't fit sdilley14's ideal drive.

It pays to shop around because I don't think enclosures are the best deal as they once were. You still can get really good deals with enclosures but from what I've seen people are just naturally assuming enclosures are always the cheapest. Always compare prices...

[mduell]

Originally Posted by EndlessMac 

I know that a lot of people like enclosures but when was the last time people checked out prices for pre-built external hard drives? The drive I got was a Seagate 250 GB, USB 2.0, 7200 RPM for $90 from Amazon. It also has a 5 year warranty so it's obvious Seagate knows about the competition with enclosures. It seems like the better deal to me but it is AC powered and USB 2 only so it doesn't fit sdilley14's ideal drive.

It pays to shop around because I don't think enclosures are the best deal as they once were. You still can get really good deals with enclosures but from what I've seen people are just naturally assuming enclosures are always the cheapest. Always compare prices...

You're comparing cars and motorcycles. The drive you bought is a desktop drive, not a laptop drive; as you noted, it requires AC power, and it's quite a bit bigger and heavier.
250GB Seagate desktop drives are $65, and USB2 enclosures are about $12... so about $13 less than what you paid. For another $5 ($83 total, still less than what you paid), you could get a 320GB Seagate and a USB2 enclosure.

Indeed, it does pay to shop around and compare prices. Newegg has the Seagate pre-built 250GB external you bought for $80 with less than $10 shipping. Always compare prices, and always compare like with like.

[cgc]

If you search these forums you'll find a LOT of recent threads about this very subject.