Looking to purchase a 500 GB-1 TB External Firewire HD. Suggestions?

Question

I mainly use my 17-inch Powerbook G4 for Film/Video production (Final Cut Studio, Final Draft), and, as such, am just about out of hard drive space. I have about 55 GB left, which to some might seem like a lot, but since I'm using it now as my main scratch disk (place for storing video files), I don't expect it to last me two months, if that. So, I'm looking for a 500 GB- 1 TB external HD, preferably Firewire (Sub-question: is Firewire the best choice?), and was wondering if anyone had any experience with external drives on par with what I'm looking for, and if anyone could recommend any drives. Thanks a bunch.
17-inch Powerbook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.5)  

Answer 1

55gb in a Final Cut Studio environment isn't much!
If your going to use the external drive purely for external storage so you can continue to use your PB internal hard drive as the main drive, then speed (USB vs FW400 vs FW800) is not as critical as it would be if you want to use it for your realtime scratch space, for example. However, that said, I'd still recommend you get FW800. Anymore, most external enclosures that support FW also support USB. And a FW drive can be booted off of, where USB-only can't.
Recommend an external unit that has it's own power supply. Some devices want to use power off the USB or FW, and sometimes there are power issues, usually with USB. Having it's own power supply negates any potential problem there.
Then you should decide if you are going to buy a complete drive that you plug in, or assemble your own. Some considerations, and one path if you want to build your own:
Most external hard drives have one year warranties. You can get a drive with a 3-5 year warranty if you assemble your own. It's not difficult to assemble your own...may sound scary, but it's pretty straight forward.
Assemble your own, requires the hard drive and case: There are a number of 3.5" 500gb hard drives available with 3-5 year warranties (I like http://www.newegg.com , for prices and good service). Although lower capacity, 320gb drives are quite a bit less expensive than the 500gb drives. In the 320's, I prefer Western Digital drives as they tend to run cooler than Seagates.
Add a Rosewill RX30 external case (includes power supply and USB/FW 400) $60. This brushed aluminum case looks like it was made to sit right next to our PB's (I've got one). You can see it at their web site at http://www.rosewill.com/product/product.aspx?productId=80 or also at Newegg. If you want, the Rosewill case also comes with FW800 for another $35.
Assembling it is very easy - you can read the directions on Rosewill's site at http://www.rosewill.com/RosewillSoftware/RX30_eng.pdf , for example. You disassemble the case by taking out 4 screws on the bottom of the Rosewill case, plug the included plug into the hard drive, secure the hard drive with 4 screws to the case, and reassemble it.
I use the program SuperDuper to back up my PB files to the external drive, and would recommend it. There are other backup programs, too. SuperDuper can be found at http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html