Portable Hard Drive?

Well, I recommend buying a 2.5" notebook drive enclosure, along with a notebook hard drive. While it costs more, it will be worth it, IMO. The enclosure is very small compared to 3.5" enclosures, and notebook drive enclosures use USB 2.0 to power the device, which means no AC adapter. It won't be as fast as a 3.5" model, but it will be much more convenient. The enclosure itself is only about $15, while the 80gb drive is $105. As always, I recommend buying from newegg.com. :)

actually, yes. It's about as thin as a checkbook but only 2/3s the length. It certainly doesn't weigh much either.

hmm ok thanks.

yea but the thing is im gonna need as much space as i can get... so im looking for over 80gb.

One word of caution.
All of the USB2 enclusures ship and are designed to be used with 2 USB ports. 1 USB port is not enough to provide power needed. I find this annoying.

However, I did a bit of experimentation and found that, on most high-end PC notebooks (have not tried Apple) 1 USB port is enough to reliably power the enclosure if you pick the parts right. I don't see why it would not work on Apple.

I use Nexstar USB2 enclosure with a Fujitsu 4200 RPM (MHT series) drive. Fujitsus are the most power efficient, as far as I can tell by the specs. The newer series of 4200 RPM drives are even more efficient than my MHT drive and you can get upto 120 GB.

I found that Toshiba AH series also works. According to spec sheet this drive consumes similar amount of power to 5400 RPM Seagate 100 GB drives as well as the new 5400 RPM Fujitsu series. So I believe that those can also be used with 1 USB port.

I have not been able to make Hitachi drives work, even the 4200 RPM ones.

I hope this helps.

hmm now i gotta find a store with a good enclosure/hard drive combo. im not sure about ordering it online.

yea thats what my friend just told me. ill be sure to get a firewire enclosure. but first i need to find a place that sells the fujitsu MHV2120AT in 120gb.