I'm in a slightly different situation to Sean.

My laptop has only Firewire 400 and I'm trying to decide between a G-Drive 5400 and 7200.

Do you think I'd realise any significant improvement with the 7200 over a Firewire 400 connection?

I just had a Lacie rugged go down on me, turns out the SATA connector inside simply came off! not great. I run 4 of these and they seem OK but I'm now switching to the G-drive raid mini http://www.g-technology.com/products/G-RAID-mini.cfm which gives me raid0.

I also use a Drobo for archive and just noticed they have a new firewire 800 version http://www.drobo.com/

Dan

I agree with Torv & Dave--stay away from LaCie. I lost 2 weeks of work when a Big Disk died, and customer service could have cared less. G-Techs have worked flawlessly ever since.

I have a G-Drive (mini?) that I bought for Time Machine when I upgraded to Leopard last year and it's been great. I spoke with their people at MacWorld and got a very good impression of their company and people. That doesn't mean the tning won't break down, but I feel a WHOLE lot more confident that they'd help me out if I needed help. LaCie couldn't care less about their customers.

Freecom 500GB Pro (with Firewire 800/400/USB)
 

I've bought this one - it's not arrived yet but I have an older version that has been flawless (so far). It's basically a 7200 rpm Samsung drive inside with Firewire 800 option which should work well with my new Macbook Pro. My older Freecom 500GB external drive is just USB. Sure, this type of drive is not highly portable but it's easy enough for my needs.

I've tended to be very picky with the choice of manufacturers for my numerous external drives (only buying Samsung/Hitachi/Seagate ones and....so far....no problems!). Opps, I forgot, I do have an old WD one (only 160GB) - still going strong too.

http://www.practicalpc.co.uk/reviews...-drive-pro.htm

There is a very good overview of the relative speeds (real world that is!!!) of USB 2, Firewire 400 and 800 in this linked review too - as an earlier poster (Sean) was asking about this. Also, I would not want a drive that is slower than 7200 rpm for my HD video stuff either. For ease and versatility these kinds of drives are ideal but if you want really fast performance you have to go for different technologies for connection of external drives I think (eSATA etc.) The G-Raid Mini and Drobo links from Dan looks interesting for sure - thanks for that!