I'm looking to buy a portable external hard drive for university related purposes, so I expect to be transporting data around fairly regularly. I've read up on a few different reviews and ended up deciding between a Western Digital Passport Portable 160GB or a Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini. However, both offer similar specs and software and pretty much the same price and that leaves me at a dilemma as to which one to buy. So any suggestions between the two or any alternative recommendations would be appreciated.

Build your own.
Buy an enclosure with eSATA, USB and put in your choice of hard disk.
Advantage: if the hard disk or enclosure goes bad you can replace it, without losing all your money.
Time to build it: less than 1 hour.
I like Icydock.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817198003

Personally, if I'm going to spend that much on an enclosure I may as well buy an external hard drive off the shelf. I don't need eSata because I wouldn't be able to utilise that at uni, even though it would be nice at home. Basically, while the 2.5" portables aren't going to be as fast, they are going to be more convenient. As for the advantage, if I lose either than it is pretty much just as bad as losing the entire external drive.

Thanks for the input though.