I'm in the market for a solid external, bus-powered drive for doing some HD work. I've got a HV20, and to avoid the generational losses associated with HDV I'd like to work with my footage in the upcoming ProRes 422 codec. According to Apple's Whitepaper (http://images.apple.com/finalcutstudio/resources/white_papers/L342568A_ProRes_WP.pdf), doing 24 fps at 1080 would yield me with a datarate at about 117 mbps. I'd be willing to chop it down to 720p as I'm already shooting for SD, but I'd like to have the highest-quality archive. Doing that would bring me down to around 60 mbps.

LaCie's all-terrain disk (http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10720) looks promising, anybody have any other ideas?

Try this one:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go

I use the 100gb 7200rpm FW800 version to edit with FCP on a MBP. A little pricier than some other options but very fast and the case is built well.
--JL

I've been using the LaCie Mobile, 80 and 160GB.
These are very reliable drives. They may not hold up as well as the rubber coated models, but under "normal" use, these have worked fine for me.
<http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10558>

Interesting read; thanks for that link, Ryan.

The biggest caveat in my mind about the report would be those data-rate numbers. They seem to imply uni-directional dataflow - encoding or decoding video, not doing both at the same time. When it comes to actual editing activity, expect to at least double those numbers if you're using the same interface/drive for holding all your source and rendered data.

I found capturing from my HV20 to an external FW400 drive to be a bit sluggish - via FCE on my MBP. It works, but going to eSATA made a big difference; definitely look at FW800 options for staying mobile.