StarDestroyer.Net BBS

So my ~7 year old Maxtor OneTouch4 that I use as a backup drive seems to be dying, as it's repeatedly disconnecting despite having set it's power saving features to never turn it off. Also, 90% of the time when it's plugged in to the computer Windows is saying the device has malfunctioned. This is happening on multiple computers running different OSs (Vista Ultimate 32-bit & 8 Pro 64-bit) so I'm fairly confident it's time for a replacement. Fortunately, I've gotten it working long enough on several occasions to pull all the data I wanted off it.

The drive will be used for backing up data, family pictures, etc., though I'm also considering using it as a file history drive for one Windows 8 PC I do some work from to act as a last resort backup in case something happens to the PC or main drive between commits to our Mercurial server. Primarily it's all personal data, with exception of the file history if I use it for that, so I'm only looking at a commercial drive. In conjunction periodic backups to DVDs will be made for long term storage. I can afford to spend around $100 - $150 on this drive and am looking for between 1-2 TB capacity, as I've just about filled up 500GB capacity of the dying HDD. Ideally it should be portable and USB powered as there are about 5 computers scattered around the house that will be potentially backing up data onto it. As far OS compatibility goes the computers all run Windows (XP 32-bit - Win 8 64-bit). Backup software is not needed, as except for the file history data, I prefer to manually copy over what I want preserved after archiving with 7zip. Also, ideally any tools that the manufacturer puts out should be 64-bit Windows 8 compatible, though that isn't a deal breaker, as I still have one laptop running Vista-32-bit. One of main reasons I'm wanting an external drive instead of grabbing another internal one, is that in case of a fire or something, I can just grab the drive and the latest backups on my way out.

So far looking on NewEgg I'm considering:
WD My Passport.

I'm a tad wary of Seagate, considering I know their diagnostic software doesn't support Windows 8 64-bit, though that may be unjustified given that it's not a deal breaker. I'd appreciate any recommendations, and if you have any personal experience with the drive all the better, as I'm seeing some concerning comments regarding build quality and ventilation on otherwise highly rated drives.

Never had any major or persistent issues with WD drives. Might I suggest getting a non-USB powered big drive and using backup software such as Crashplan to backup over the network to the drive? Be a lot easier than having to tote it everywhere.

I've tried connecting the current drive to my router, to act as a network drive accessible on my home WiFi network and met with limited success on multiple occasions in the past. It's possible that the current issues were affecting it then, though it seemed to work reliably when directly connected to a PC when that happened. I'm guessing the not too great Netgear wireless router and their questionable firmware support are to blame, and I'd really rather not replace the router while it still works.

Don't need to replace it. Try Crashplan. It lets you backup from one computer to another over a network or the internet for free.