Which external drive for backups?

My brand new 21.5" iMac is on its way here today, and I've been told to buy an external drive for backups. Which I think is a great idea. However, my head's starting to hurt from all the info I'm reading here on the forum about WHICH one, Firewire cables, etc etc. The Rocstor 500GB has been recommended to me personally, but I've read about Lacie and a few other brands. I'm thinking it'd be best to get a 1T size. But WHICH HARD DRIVE SHOULD I GET? I don't wanna spend a lot of bucks!!!
Plus I have a Firewire cable but how do I know if it's a 2 or a 4? I bought it when I migrated data from my Silver edition iMac to my G4 iMac back in 2004 or 2005.
Thanks!

Congratulations Sheryl on the new iMac.
I recently replaced a G-4 tower with an iMac. The G-4 had a port for Firewire 400. The iMac came equipped with one Firewire 800 port a firewire cable and 4USB ports. I suspect that also applies to your new machine. In order to transfer files from one machine to the other using Firewire 400/800 I had to buy an adapter from the Apple store. Your help menu will explain how to set up the iMac as a target for the transfer.
As to backup: I use Super Duper and over 8 years had backed up religiously to a Lacie external HD. About the time I needed to use it as a file transfer source to the iMac it quit.
After much study and considering how Time Machine can eat up space I settled on the external hard drives described below - all were partitioned. The Drobo uses firewire 800 and 4 multiple internal hard drives. It is the place where time machine is backed up. The setup was about $600.
The two lacie hard drives are USB 2.0 driven.
I have learned the hard way that it pays to backup the backups.
If I could only have one external hard drive and with all things considered I would opt for the 1TB Lacie Stark (about $125) that is USB driven.
Sure hope this helps a bit. To help further we need to know more specifics about your need.
Mcthomas

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    Message was edited by: leroydouglas
    better yet, try this solution:
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    Message was edited by: dechamp

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