[jhm]

Honestly the "best" one would likely be one you made yourself. I recently made an external drive by buying a 1TB Samsung F3 Spinpoint and a Rosewill external enclosure with a fan and both USB and eSata connections (I realize you need Firewire). The whole thing cost me $100. My research on external drives has generally shown two things:

1. The drives used, while good, are not top of the line spec wise (i.e. you could buy a better drive on your own)
2. The enclosures are often flimsy (as with Lacie's I've owned in the past) and lack a fan and proper venting.

1TB drives can run pretty hot if you have them on for long periods of time. The reason I got the Rosewill enclosure is that it's aluminum (dissipates heat), has a aluminum mesh front to allow for better airflow and a large fan on top to also help with heat dissipation.

My advice would be to go to Newegg.com or a similar site, research a quality 1TB drive and enclosure, and assemble your own. I took me about 5 minutes to assemble my last external drive and if I can do it, anyone can.

P.S. I don't know if Apple supports it (I have a PC), but eSata outperforms both Firewire 400 (by almost 2x) and Firewire 800 in terms of data transfer speeds. Something to consider if that's an option for you. Almost all of the drives that come in external enclosures these days are SATA drives and it seems a waste to not be able to take advantage of the higher data transfer rates if you use a USB or Firewire port to connect to the hard drive.