External Hard Drives-Recommendation required

Hi All,
I have a new Intel Mac and also a Lacie EHD of 80 gig capacity. I am also running XP, but about to go to Vista.
My question is about the best performing and silent (ish) EHD's.
My understanding is that Samsung in an appropriate case, may win on all counts, any comments. My aim is to use a new 300 gig Firewire EHD with an Oxford chipset, to back up the Mac ( using SuperDuper ) and use the present Firewire 80 gig Lacie to back up Windows ( have not figured out how to achieve the latter as yet-understand Windows Backup, not so good)
[[Further, my understanding is that many of the EHD 'manufacturers' eg Lacie, simply make the 'pretty case' and use mainstream drives.}}
Anyone see any issues with that? "That" being the setup I propose using in general terms.
iMac 20" Intel Core 2 Duo, 250 gig HD, 1 gig Ram Mac OS X (10.4.7) LaCie EHD 80 gig, Running XP via Boot Camp
Message was edited by: Ronald Begg

My biggest problem is the d2 case design by LaCie. I haven't used any of the others, but its power supply has a strange switch that puts the drive basically to sleep, when it is dismounted, or removed, and automounts when you start up even if you didn't press that button, or if you attach it. There are times you want the drive to act as if it isn't on. For quiet drive case designs with true on/off switches, I go for http://www.macsales.com/ cases. If you don't mind a little noise, http://www.granitedigital.com/ (also known as Relax Technologies) has one more plus to its side and that's the fact its cases actually use standard power supplies. The downside is the fan, but a properly inserted drive will yield very little if any fan noise on them.

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Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Personally, I like Western Digital and Seagate drives. And I would recommend looking for a larger drive, as prices have really come down and you can often find sales. There is almost no such thing as a hard drive that is too big. I believe the extra space will help with the bigger files because it will improve the chances of larger blocks of space to receive the data.
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sketchgirl wrote:
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+When I try to erase my FAT32 external HD using Disk Utility...+
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Keep within the Law
No material may be submitted that is intended to promote or commit an illegal act.
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