Question : Problem: What's the best external hard drive to use with an Intel iMac?

I have an 1.83 GHz Intel core 2 duo iMac with 1.25 GB memory, and I need to get a bigger external hard-drive for weekly back-ups and storage. (I currently use a LaCie firewire 80 GB one.) I notice that USB hard drives are cheaper, but I've read that firewire is better and that Macs will automatically utilise the faster form of firewire.

I'd be grateful for any views on whether USB is significantly slower than firewire. And is the extra speed you get with firewire worth the extra money? Finally what brands do people favor? Buffalo and Seagate seem to be cheapest. Is it worth paying extra for a LaCie?

Thanks in advance for your opinions and advice!

Answer : Problem: What's the best external hard drive to use with an Intel iMac?

I believe that firewire is supposed to be faster. The spec for USB 2.0 says 480 while the spec for firewire 400 says 400 as the top speed. Firewire 800 approaches 800. SO my original statement would appear contradictory if we're talking about FW 400. But I've found an article whihc seems to indicate that FW 400 is still faster than USB 2.0.  Here's the link http://www.cwol.com/firewire/firewire-vs-usb.htm.

I use a WD My Book Studio edition that has 500 GB using firewire 400 and ran me about $125. I've been very happy with it so far. I even dropped a Parallels VM on it and it ran with "reasonable" speed...although that kind of app really does run better from a local drive. Still...I was pretty impressed at how good a job it did. I do have a friend that uses the LaCie drive and really likes it.