Need Advice on Portable External HDs

[Route44]

Right now there are several good deals for portable harddrives: Western Digital's Passport, Seagate's FreeAgent Go, and Maxtor's One Touch Mini.

I don't have a clue as to reliability and dependability of these portables. I have also read that external HDs can run hot and that Seagate offerings are more solidly built, but as with anything hardware there are bias' galore.

Objective advice and suggestions please. Thanks.

 

[Nodsu]

If you get one with a notebook drive (those smaller ones, USB powered), then it will not run hot.

As for reliability and dependability.. It is as bad as with any other hard drive. Always consider that the thing can fail tomorrow and take all your data with it - make backups of your precious data.