Recommendations for an firewire 800 external hard drive?

[davidmigl]

I'm in the market for an external hard drive, around 500gb, that supports a firewire 800 connection for use with my macbook pro. There seem to be plenty of "good" drives but no "great" drives - there seem to be a few minor quirks with each e.g. most seem to be relatively noisy compared to a mac, some WD and Lacie have cheap plastic housing, iomega has awful customer support, maxtor is ... enough said, have heard reports of failure pretty much any where I go. The only really great drive I've found is a G-drive Q 500GB but I was hoping for a less expensive solution... Is there such thing as a durable, quiet, reliable FW800 external hard drive for, say, <$175, or is there a price to be paid for quality?

 

[robanga]

I have a LaCie with a metal enclosure, 1 TB. They have a 500GB as well. I've been quite happy with it.