I don't deal in external H/Ds so I will let others point you in the right direction. However, since you are referring to your photos I wish to remind no storage media is the panecea to users. All types of media; CD, DVD, thumb drive, and external H/Ds can fail for one reason or another. We must remember too all the previously mentioned media, except the H/D which is still too evolving, are in their infancy stage with only scientific forecasts as to their lifecycle. Many users, including myself, recommend the storage of priority files be duplicated on multiple formats at the same time. If one format does corrupt or fail the odds of another format likewise failing are astronomical.

The keys here are target safety and security. Not the issue of convenience. Please chose wisely as I have read and heard too many episodes of loss.

DA

I have a Seagate, good, reliable, nice warranty, easy to use. Mine is a free agent pro model. Be sure to check warranty period of the one you consider.
I read a lot of real user reviews before making any decision, amazon is a good place for those and so is newegg. I would stay away from refurbished.
One important thing to watch for is any mention of heat issues, running hot is a very bad thing. At one time western digital had a few models that were extremely notorious for heat problems. So read up on the specific models.
I have western digital internal drives, the black caviar drives.

Not disagreeing with ravencajun but I had a Seagate free agent that caused days of misery with the help desks then $40 to have it replaced under warranty.

However I still like Seagate hard drives, that is only the third with defects in 20 years.

On receiving the replacement I removed the hard drive and placed it in a case that needs a USB port and not a LAN port as the free agent was. I had a spare case so there was no further outlay.

As for choice it really does not matter whose name is on the outside as these 3 are about the most popular hard drive manufacturers I believe, Seagate, Maxtor (owned by Seagate) and Western Digital. Just make sure the capacity is big enough.

I have a Western Digital My Passport external hard drive. It is 1 TB capacity and it cost me $75.00 last year. It is about the same size as my wallet, is easily portable, and has served me well thus far.

I bought an HP Simple Save and I would buy another one just like it if I needed a second one. I didn't install the software I just use the usb port and click and drag or copy and past my personal files to the HD.

Good feedback. Thank you all.

Add Toshiba to the A List of drive manufacturers.

Drives are a commodity these days, no brand is really superior ro any other. They leapfrog one another with features and price points. Any product from one of the top manufacturers is very likely to be a good product, have a reasonable useful life, and each has about the same low (but statistically valid) possibility of premature death. As with any electronic product, it's most likely to fail when new. Once it's been turned on and off some number of times without a problem, it's likely to be durable. For this reason, the length of the warranty is really irrelevant, because if it passes the first month or so without a problem, the next issue is not likely to be seen until several years down the road.

Decide what size you think you need, add a fudge factor, then stick with that. There's no reason to buy a 2 TB drive when a 500 GB drive (25% of 2 TB) meets your needs.

Two other recommendations. First, I agree with the suggestion to have TWO backups instead of one, and keep the second one in a different location. Second, most people find the so-called "portable" models (that use only USB power) more convenient than the ones that are larger and have a separate AC power supply.

Maybe just add a 2nd drive internally in your computer case? Gotta be lots faster.

I have two external hard drives, both Western Digital.
One has its own power source; the other is powered by USB.
Both are 1 TB and I have never had a problem.

Pooh Bear

====================
This was sent to me thru one of my Yahoo groups:

As I have been going through my archived data discs I have been coming across several of them that have become bad over the years and thus I cannot get anything off of them. There are photos and videos that were on some of them that I cannot replace:-( So, I made an account at an online file storage site to save my precious files to the cloud to help save from disc deterioration.

As I was looking around to see what my options were for storing my sensitive data I came across this site and found it interesting. The discs are pricey (about ~$3 a disc) but they are known as the '1000 year disc.' It takes a special burner to burn them. The DVD Burner is like $40 at Best Buy so you can probably find it even cheaper somewhere else if you shop around. Not sure if there are any retail sellers for the M-Discs though. I didn't dig too deep trying to find anything. Check out the site because it is interesting. They say it is like burning the data into a rock, lol!

Anyway, I found this a while back and thought I would share it with you real quick while I had the time:-)

M-DISC, Write Once and Read Forever.
You might feel like you're making a "permanent" backup of your files when you copy them onto a DVD or backup to a computer hard-drive, but the truth is these devices suffer from natural decay and degradation.
Current DVD technology uses organic dyes and low laser power to make marks on the data layer of a standard recordable DVD. Over time, these marks become unreadable because organic dyes degrade when exposed to minimal levels of light, heat, and humidity. This means all the data you thought was safely stored could be lost because the discs you used have an average lifespan of only about 3 to 5 years! Why would you risk your data based on an average; hundreds of discs taken into account in that average were corrupt and unreadable after only a few months. With Millenniata, we don't subject you to the possibility of losing your data. When we say "Write Once and Read Forever", we mean it.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://millenniata.com/m-disc/

Interesting, Pooh Bear. Will have to look further into this type of disc.