[imtheguy]

It all depends on your requirements. As far as vendor, I use Newegg as my benchmark for price and service but everyone has their favorite. I am sure they have a bigger selection than B&H and they are just as reliable. As far as interface e-SATA is fastest if your PC supports it, if not, a box with both USB 2.0 and Firewire is pretty flexible. Manufacturer is not something you will notice when using it so I put little stock in that. Name brand is fine but only a few names make the drives and a lot of names make the metal box for external apps. Again, check the ones you like on Newegg and read the customer reviews. Decide what matters most to you: price, aesthetics, warranty, internal fan so it can run 7/24, speed, name brand, anything else that matters to you.

The most important recommendation I can give you as an IT pro is to use TWO external backup units even if you must use smaller ones to cut cost. That way you can keep one off-site (at a family member's house, at work) and one on-site (assuming your house) to do backups as needed. Then swap the two every week or two or after real significant events. If there is a disaster of any kind (fire, lightning that takes out everything plugged in, theft) you still have all your data and pics. Last but not least, do what 95% of people do not do and that is to verify your backups occasionaly by restoring the data to make sure they are reliable.

I have helped more than one office restart their automation from scratch after they lost EVERYTHING because their backups of customer data and billing either didnt exist or were stored in a nice small safe that was stolen along with all the computers over the weekend. Sad but true.