External Hard Drive for Final Cut Pro

I recently switched the external hard drive I use for edting. My old one was a Western Digital My Passport Essential 500 GB USB 2.0, which I ordered in March. I purchased this one because it's super portable and many student editors use it. It worked fine when I edited in standard definition, but when it comes to high definition, that's another story. I often encountered the problem of dropped frames when using it do to HD editing. According to the engineer at my school's editing lab, the problem was caused by the slow transfer rate of the USB. He recommended that I purchase an external hard drive with an eSATA. I didn't plan to do so, because the WD hard drive had just arrived. But as dropped frames ocurred again and again, I changed my mind.

I followered the engineer's recommendation and ordered a Seagate FreeAgent XTreme 640 GB USB 2.0/FireWire 400/eSATA Desktop External Hard Drive on Amazon. Although this item was only rated 3.5 on a 5 scale, it has worked well with my editing so far. I have encountered fewer dropped frames, and compared to other desk top hard drives, it's more compact.