$150 external harddrive recommandations?

[violent]

alright, the crap is piling up on my laptop hardrive like there is no tomorrow, i watch that harddrive go from a healthy 33gb, to a 25 to a 20, and now finally an anorexic 16gb. and the problem is, it is all crap that i pretty much need, videos, photos, music, etc. and with a 5400 rpm notebook harddrive, that thing is having a hard time turning over with so much crap, it takes a noticeable ammount of time just to start adobe reader.
so i got m tax refund, i figure i gotta about $150 to blow on an external harddrive. now i want to get a firewire one, because this drive will actually be plugged into my laptop most of the time and be used just like a regular harddrive, not a backup only drive (meaning watching movies directly off it, so i dont want to deal with USB). does anyone have any recommandations?

i figure i should go for atleast 120gb and above, but no maxtor or western digital ones ever fall within my price range for that size. thanks for any input.

i was also wondering if any knows if there is a sort of external casing to convert internal harddrives to external usb+firewire ones. i've only seen usb only ones. but i was wondering if there are any usb+firewire external housings. would getting a cheaper/bigger internal hd and a external enclosure be better than getting a smaller external hd? will an internal hd be stable in an external enclosure (with regards to voltage and temp)?

thanks.

 

[pat]

find an enclosure and then , a HDD to fit in with what remain of the money. Good enclosure could be found for around 35$ for FW/USB2 so you should be able to find a nice HDD for the remaining money.

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware, UNLESS YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH A MSI BOARD !!!