One of the "next on my list" peripherals for my MacBook Pro has been an external hard drive. I have one, but it's AC powered and I wanted a bus powered one for travel and ease of use.
After a lot of looking around and reading reviews, I settled on the LaCie Rugged All-Terrain Hard Drive.
If you want a review of it, it was a cNet Editor's Choice in August 2006. They tested the 80 gigabyte model, but as far as I can tell, the performance is pretty consistent along the line (80, 100, and 120 gig models).
With a ruggedized 2.5" form factor drive plus USB 2.0, Firewire 400, and Firewire 800 connectors (even comes with a FireWire 800 cable included), it isn't a simple backup unit. If you want that, there are plenty of cheaper and faster options you can leave plugged in at home. This is a road warrior's buddy for increasing hard drive space on your MacBook Pro by up to double with a unit that is both speedy and resilient.
In cNet's tests, it read a 10 gig folder of mixed files at an average of around 19.3 megabytes per second on FireWire 400 and 22.1 megabytes per second on FireWire 800. And with the FireWire 800 connection, it also wrote a 10 gig folder of mixed files at 20 megabytes per second. While the read speeds are not particularly impressive compared to most USB 2.0 external drives, the write speeds blew them out of the water, writing data at more than double the speed of comparable 2.5" USB 2.0 drives.
Everything I've read suggests that the power output on the MacBook and MacBook Pro's USB ports is too low to power most USB hard drives, requiring you to use a secondary USB-to-power cable to make up the gap. That means monopolizing all your USB ports. But it seems that the firewire ports have more juice and do well with bus-powered units.
But more than that, with the FireWire 800 connector, if you have a MacBook Pro, you don't have to sacrifice your FireWire 400 or USB ports. And since there aren't a whole lot of FireWire 800 products, the drive won't have a lot of competition for that port.
Of course, if you're powering it off the laptop's FireWire or USB bus, that's going to lower how long your laptop will run on battery power. But, when you're plugged in at home, on a plane, at a coffee house, or in a hotel room, that won't matter. And if you divide your files intelligently between it and your internal hard drive, you should be able to use it sparingly when you're not plugged in to maximize battery life.
I just ordered the 120 Gig model from NewEgg and will post a new entry when I've put it through its paces next week.
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