I'm planning on making my MacbookPro my main machine at home since the bulk of my writing is done on my iMac at school.  I plan to get an external hard drive to use with Time Machine and I got to thinking about the possibility of partitioning the drive to put my VDL samples on it as well.  Does anyone have any suggestions on a good hard drive for this?  I'm on a budget (which i know when you're talking suggestions on quality can pretty much end the conversation) but I'm looking for a good 7200rpm drive around the 200gig range that's compatible with Time Machine.

in addition, if having the samples on a separate, external drive is a bad idea, I'd like to hear suggestions on that too.  :) 

Not sure if there is a frys electronics around you, but I had a friend snag up a freeagent for 109 tonight. it was a 500 gig.

That's a great deal for $109.  I bought my Seagate Freeagent 500 gig about 18 months ago for around $160.

Check out: http://freeagent.seagate.com/en-us/

Of course, you want the Freeagent for Mac.

Being the impulse buyer that I am with this stuff I went ahead and picked up a Seagate Freeagent 500gb 7200rpm at newegg.com last night for $89.  :)

Also ordered a ram upgrade for the Macbook Pro.  Merry Christmas to me.  :)

I wouldn't store samples or anything where speed is important on an external drive unless you connect it eSATA.  USB and Firewire are going to be slower than your internal drive.

Here's what I use for my MacBook Pro.

eSATA expresscard.  I got it for $15 at Best Buy.
http://www2.pny.com/ExpressCard-eSATA-II-2-Port-P2556C328.aspx

I built my own external drive by buying a case with eSATA, Firewire 800, 400, and USB 2.0 so I can connect it to anything.

Case: $80 (not cheap, but looks Mac-ish and has every possible connector)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182123

1 TB (1,000 GB) drive: $110
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152102

If you only connect a 3.5"; 7,200 rpm drive with only USB or Firewire, you are going to choke its speed significantly.

Thanks for the tips Jesse.  Hadn't thought about that.  Looks like I'll just keep the samples where they are.  It's what I'm used to, so ignorance is bliss I guess.  :)