Help purchasing a new external hard drive

i need some info/help on choosing the feature set for a new external HD. the current one i'm using is only 5400 rpm with a 8 mb cache, connected via USB 2.0. i'm looking to replace it because when i play large video files off of the drive it drops frames left and right. Specifically 720p MKV files and 4 GB DVD ISO files. These files play just great when they're on the main internal HD. i do know i should be using 7200 rpm drive, in general really. should i be looking for a larger cache as well, 16 MB, 32 MB? should i get one with firewire 400 (it's all my machine has) or will usb 2.0 still be ok. i know usb 2.0 relies on the processor a bit for the transfer so i'm thinking firewire would be a better bet, especially with those processor eating full HD files? Am an idiot in this train of thought? I will be using the drive heavily, my mini is a media center so the drive holds all my music, movies and pics.
any info or suggestions for a hard drive are much appreciated, i'm looking for around 500 GB - 1 TB, and am hoping to spend around $100, if possible.
thanks all.

I agree with that for sure... I just want to make sure that someone here on the board does not get the idea that you can purchase the ministack so that they can kill two bird with one stone. In other words I don't recommend purchasing the ministack for the purpose of having extra USB and Firewire ports thru the ministacks posts.
Now the mini stack works great as a firewire or USB hub, but only one or the other.
For those reading that are unclear, the hub on the mini stack allows you to keep you ministack plugged in either USB or Firewire and then you can plug external devices such as other HDD's, thumb drives, mice or printers.
Just to clarify for those searching for an external enclose, I love my mini stack.

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