[ale] External HDD (non?)recommendations

[kwc at TheWorld.com (Ken Cochran)]

Hey y'all, any recommendations/non-recommendations about
external HDDs?  Looking for USB/Firewire & maybe eSATA.
What are some good (or not so good) ones?  Sometime back,
when I asked at a college bookstore, they indicated that they
like LaCie, because at the time they held up pretty well with
Evil Students (who tend to drop or otherwise mistreat them)
and they didn't get a lot of returns compared to others.  Or,
would I do better building something from a (external/portable)
case and separate HDD (suggestion for a make/model)?  Capacity
isn't super important - looks like everything nowadays is at
least 500gb - looking more for reliability.  Ideas?

Thanks, -kc