External HDD Drives: Advice/Suggestions Needed

[Xathagorra]

Hailz all.

I need to know what the most reliable external HDDs are out there to do the following:

1) make a mirror image ('ghost') of my current system set-up
2) backing-up all my files

But, I need a drive which has the following:

1) on/off power switch
2) is plug-and-play (preferably)

If there are two different drives which are quality, I'd be able to just pick up one drive to use for files, and another to back-up my system, if just one external HDD doesn't have the features I need and/or might be a little less reliable than the other (in which case I can decide which would be best for me to use for which purpose).

The most important aspect here is having an extremely reliable HDD on which on can back-up the tons of graphic art and music files and know will last and be reliable.

'Ghosting' my system would also be great, if there's something reliable enough (though I'd need the same drive I have now/same size in order to replace the mirror image, correct?).

If someone could give suggestions on the best drives for both purposes, that would be ideal.

Thanks in advance.
[X]

[serbiaNem]

If you are using firewire, get anything with an oxford chipset. The ones with prolific chipsets will eat your drive eventually. That's all I know from experience..

[MNOB07]

I would go for either one of these and a desktop internal ATA drive: (there is an SATA version but it's more expensive and so are the drives so I see little point to it)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145656
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145657

One uses USB 2.0 and the other has USB 2.0+Firewire

I believe they both use an oxford chipset but I'm not sure. Regardless they're both well made, use a quiet fan that cools the circuits of the hdd very well, and I haven't had one problem with getting them to work with Windows XP or 2000 with no extra drivers needed (I haven't tried macs or older operating systems but I would assume it works great at least with the proper drivers.) The only problem I've ever had (have used the firewire one for over 6 months) is that the transfer rate over firewire seems to be stuck at 25MB/s while it's advertised at 40MB/s over firewire. Hasn't been enough of a problem to look into it though

As far as "ghosting" goes you would need some other kind of software because it's not bundled with this.

[serbiaNem]

^ uses the oxford chipset