External hard drive vs USB drives?

I'm in need of backup storage for my MBP but my mind is fuzzed up by all the options, reviews, etc...
What's the best - USB drives or an external hard drive? There's conflicting reviews on different brands - is there one that best for Mac?

If you have no drive now, don't worry so much. The differences between USB and FireWire and eSATA are mostly moot for backups. TimeMachine goes off in the background and assuming you have a slow bus speed (old USB 1.0) it's not going to slow the mac up for you. (since the mac is capable of pushing a ton more data and the files copy in the background).
Instead of a normal backup taking one minute to complete it might take 5.
In reality - most current shipping USB 2.0 drives are nearly as fast as FireWire and the drive itself is usually slower than the interface for normal backup operations.
I would pick something that works for you in terms of cable, looks, warranty/support and price. When you need that last 5% speed, you'll know how to measure and pick the racehorses but there are so many better things to learn on your mac than speeds of the bus and drives.
Getting your backups going is so much more important than picking the "wrong" drive. Good Luck and I hope this helps. Also - apple's online store stocks some of the best drives on the planet. If you are in doubt - check there. If you need to cut costs - go ahead and know that even the "worst" external dive is so unlikely to fail at the same time as your internal HD that it's hard to go too wrong picking your first backup drive.

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