I use a LaCie Porsche Design 1T with my laptop. It works great and is fairly highly regarded. They make a rugged drive a lot of people who use their drives in the field seem to like. They also make SSD versions (more expensive.)
In short I have been very happy with my 1T Porsche Design drive.
Been using one for at least two years, main storage for all my photos. The one I use has a rugged case and had no problems.
I've been using a LaCie 1TB on an older system since 2011. I have since upped my externals to 1-2TB & 2-4TB Westen Digital drives with the two larger ones on a more powerful system.
Added note: this drive is great for travel due to the size. If you are not using it for travel, you can get more drive (around 4x the space on average) for less in a larger form factor.
LaCie does make very good drives. I used to have a Porche drive but it eventually died as I must have had it for 8+ years. A couple of my back-up drives would only work if connected directly in the computer and would not work with a USB hub. Just something to consider.
Although, based on the size being advertised and it's price, 500 GB isn't all that big in comparison to current drive sizes (2 - 5 TB).
I believe LaCie was bought out by Seagate...
TriX
Loc: Raleigh, NC
LaCie does not make drives - they package usually cheap drives in very stylish cases and occasionally win acclaims for style but not engineering. They have been purchased several times, most recently by Seagate, and they have a poor reliability reputation from those of us that have been unfortunate enough to work on them. There are much better drives such as HGST and WD Red enterprise class drives which can easily be packaged in a less stylish, but more robust enclosure, and that is what I would do if considering an external drive.
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