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Just FYI: the small G drive is slightly larger and has excellent durability reviews. Same price range. I've been using two older, larger G drives for nightly backups of both Mac and Windows computers for several years.
 
No platter-based hard drive is better in terms of durability than any other.

I'm guessing you missed the Hitachi Deathstar debacle and the Seagate firmware fiasco? These were both in the last few years, affected wide swaths of product and caused irretrievable data loss.

Also, I'll never buy another Maxtor product again; was burnt by two of their drives dying in <2 years.
 
Here's a review of the OWC Elite Mini

https://www.macworld.com/article/1147094/owc_mercury_eliteal_promini.html

If Firewire 800 & esata are not necessary, my suggestion would be to go low end, for better value.

USB 3.0 on Macs is around the corner (probably), SSD prices will come down and Thunderbolt peripherals will eventually drop in price. There will be good priced better external storage options soon. Budget minded people will save for those.

If there's plenty of cash, OWC, G-Drive, Trans International and Wiebetech all have high end multi-interface portable drives.

Buy your own drive and slip it in your own enclosure: something like the MacAlly 2.5 enclosure FW400/USB2:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817347013

I have found them light and dependable. If needed, FW 800 to FW 400 cables are cheap at Monoprice.

I'd also go for the 750 Gb HDD's, unless very high capacity is necessary. You can easily find 7200 rpm 750 Gb drives, some with a cache >8 MB . Most 1Tb drives are slower.

I've found OWC customer service very good.
 
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