Thanks, @buddingphotographer for taking care of these questions. I’m just reading this thread for the first time! 🙂
@thefarmhand, I use Western Digital and recommend that or Seagate. Iomega is cheaper, but I had one fail on me after a year or so. 🙁 I’ve not had any Western Digital or Seagate fail on me . . . yet.
It seems awful expensive up front, but I do recommend that when you buy one hard drive, you buy a second just like it to use as it’s backup. Getting started, you actually need three: one to back up your computer, one to store pictures, and the other to back up the stored pictures. When your storage drive is full, you’ll have to buy two more. And that’s why I recommend you get as large a drive as you can up front. 2TB or 3TB will last you a long time and the price/GB is much less, even though it’s money up front.
And, as a side note, make sure to store you backup drives in a separate location than your storage drives. 🙂