There is no such thing as a truly reliable external firewire drive, sadly. Though I've had better luck with LaCies then with some other brands.
Laptop users remember! TURN ON THE COMPUTER BEFORE CONNECTING THE DRIVE TURN ON THE DRIVE (if that's an option) BEFORE CONNECTING CONNECT AND WAIT FOR MOUNTING before launching FCP or whatever. EJECT/DISMOUNT the drive before disconnecting <<<the most important one DISCONNECT before shutting down, sleeping. And remember FW400 connectors are super super fragile despite their appearance. Plug and unplug carefully. Pull straight out/push straight in. This goes for the little camera ports too. Most drive failures come from repeated "live" disconnects and shutdowns. The next culprit in line is bent/tweaked firewire ports, then burned out firewire ports. (of course there are variations other will swear by, but the dismount before disconnect or shutdown/sleep is absolutely crucial to getting any longevity out of the drive at all). Brook p.s. the best advice: switch to eSATA as soon as you can. _______________________________________________________ Brook Hinton film/video/audio art www.brookhinton.com studio vlog/blog: www.brookhinton.com/temporalab