External hard drives are great for portable storage needs, but often you have to trade speed for that portability. Seagate has an external drive that is as close as you will get to internal drive speeds that uses the eSATA interface.

The subject of this review is the Seagate eSATA 500GB External Hard Drive. Seagate includes a PCI eSATA card for users who don’t have an on-board eSATA part and the required cable.
Review excerpt: "Internally the drive inside the external enclosure is the Seagate ST3500641AS 500GB 7200.9 SATA 3Gb/s drive that features NCQ. This is the same exact drive you would buy from Seagate if you wanted a 500GB internal HDD. If you use the PCI eSATA card Seagate includes with the drive, you will be able to get the full 3.0 GB/s speed." Read the full review here.