Recommendations for an external hard drive

[cotswoldcs]

I'm looking for a 250Gb external hard drive and can see there is a lot of choice out there. I need it as a backup device predominantly, although it may be needed for general storage if I run out of hard drive space again! I'd love a few personal recommendations. So far my shortlist is:

Western Digital
Buffalo
Seagate
Freecom

[Clunk]

Samsung + icy dock.