External Hard Drives & General Storage/Formatting Question

[-x-th]

I just have two questions regarding external hard drives/storage:

1) What would be recommended as a very reliable, solid external HDD to use simply for backing up files?

I've been looking into Seagate's FreeAgent series. Seems to have some positive reviews at the EGG, but I know WD apparently makes some good drives as well. Need something that's reliable and that will last.

2) With these drives, do you need to install the file transfer software? Or can these drives just be detected as an external storage device when plugged in via USB/eSata and files just sent to the external drive?

Regarding my general storage/formatting question:

Is it possible to use a drive that's not formatted as secondary storage?

Someone I knew once stated they had two extra drives in their system, connected to their mobo as usual, that weren't formatted that they used to back up their files.

Is it actually possible to transfer files to drives that aren't formatted (NTFS), that would just be detected as extra drives/"storage devices" by your system?

Thanks.

 

[the_other_guy]

I have a FreeAgent 750, soon picking up a 1Tb. We use them for quite a few people at the office and have had very few issues regarding IT support for them.

I have been using mine as a native drive over usb, and havent toyed with the software. I may look into this further, some of my backup processes at home I would like to change when i get the second drive.