I'm after a thin, realiable, not too expensive external hardrive. Any suggestions?

Have you checked out the ‘Icy Box’?

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/icybox-ib-390st-us-b-black-35-sata-hdd-with-usb-plusesata?utm_source=google+shopping&utm_medium=google+shopping

Do you think it would work with a 2011 Macbook Pro? Also what’s with the weird curve at the bottom? @earthboundmisfit

is it me or does that website not show the actual capacity of the HD itself? is it a TB? or 500gb? or 2TB?

Also what capacity were you looking for @Paul ? I think the curve at the bottom is a plastic stand you can use to sit the HD on, it looks detachable and separate.

EDIT : hahaha that link isn’t even for the HD, instead some kind of ‘case’ for it. Like it needs protection or something :/ I suppose that’s why it’s only $30!

I have an older Icy Box, which I use with my Macbook Pro all the time :).

The link I guess wasn’t too helpful… but you can look up the Icy Box brand any how – their products are good looking and not terribly expensive.

Pretty much any USB hard drive will work on OS X so that shouldn’t really be a factor. All you have to do is open up Disk Utility and format it as HFS + (Journaled). And if you plan on making it bootable (which I suggest) make sure the Partition Table in GUID. I have a couple of these that work well and aren’t very big.

SeaGate Expansion Hard Drives are thin enough. The Free Agent is thinner and can has more storage but it’s more expensive. Click here

As for its compatibility with MacOS, @johnpowell (the composer?) already answered that. If you want it to work with Windows and MacOS, choose the FAT option instead on Disk Utility. (FAT does not make it only work with 16-bit, it’s actually more flexible, it can handle 16, 32 and 64-bit as compared to Windows FAT32 format).

Hope this helps :D