TimeMachine Ext HDD

[Jeff McCuistion]

I'm looking to purchase a new external hard drive for a Intel iMac.   
I've heard there are several manufacturers whose hard drives have a  
lot of problems with Leopard's TimeMachine.  Can anyone steer me in  
the right direction?  Also, I don't know if it maters, but I want to  
partition the drive and have one partition for TimeMachine and one for  
media.  I need at least 500GB.  Thanks!