Need a recommendation on an External Hard Disk Drive for PC

[Rerednaw]

I am looking at purchasing an External Hard Disk Drive for my Dell Inspiron 9300. I read about several (Seagate, Maxtor, Cavalry, etc.) and was looking for some advice from netland.

Which ones have you used and would recommend? Any that you would steer away from and why?

It's going to be light to moderate-use. I don't plan on taking it out of an office environment very often but it will happen.

Looking for:

300-500 GB range.
USB 2.0

Everything else (buffer size, bells and whistles) is secondary to reliability, ease of use, and good customer service/warranty if it explodes.

Right now I'm considering the Cavalry 400GB 7200RPM USB 2.0 External Hard Drive - CAUI37400. I can pick it up for about $80 (no tax, free shipping.) $93 if I get a 2 year replacement warranty.

Any advice welcome.

Thanks.

 

[Horsepower]

I have an old Maxtor 8000LE which has been a workhorse. I bought the Maxtor case to carry it around, and move it quite often. <fwiw>

 

[antyler]

I have a Western Digital mybook. So far it has been reliable, and it even looks nice. The prices went way down after i purchased mine too. doh.

 

[imported_pendragon]

I too have a Western Digital My Book, 250gb.
Works fine, no problems.
All my drives are WD but I went with this external, my first, because I got it for $69 no rebates or anything on one of the Black Friday deals awhile back at BestBuy.
I store all my music, pictures, game patches etc on it.
I even run some older games on it, no problems.
Now I wonder how I got along without it.