Customer Reviews: Read 58 more reviews...
 What can I say? Data security, great aesthetics, and versatility--sign me up! December 25, 2006
Squonk (The dark forests of Pennsylvania, where hunters follow by moonlight my silvery trail of tears)
89 out of 91 found this review helpful
Uncharacteristic of the Squonk, this review will actually be pretty short. If you've read some of my other reviews, you'll know what I mean. In any event, the 500 GB HP Personal Media Drive is a fantastic product. This is largely because the concept is so ingenious, yet so simple. Traditionally, external hard drives have been somewhat cumbersome things--they require their own power source, for one. Also, no matter how small they are made, they still rob desk space. The solution? HP decided to develop a drive that combines the best features of internal drives--no need for a separate power source, no space wasted on the desk--with the data security and portability of external drives.
The 500 GB capacity comes out to 465 GB formatted/corrected for actual capacity (i.e. a gigabyte actually contains 1024 megabytes, and a megabyte actually contains 1024 kilobytes; however, in their capacity ratings drive manufacturers round off the extra 24 units in each case, the result being that the actual capacity of each drive is less than advertised). This is simply gigantic. I imagine one could archive every book ever written on this drive and still have room for the first five seasons of Family Guy. This capacity is ideal for archiving digital media, important files, and just about anything else you can think of.
Installation is a snap. If you have an HP Pavilion Media Center PC with a Personal Media Drive Bay, then it's simply a matter of sliding the drive into the bay. NOTE: The Personal Media Drive (PMD) is NOT the same as the Pocket Media Drive, also made by HP--the latter is for the standard Pavilion line. In any event, if you do not have the PMD bay, then the supplied USB cable and power adapter are no problem to use. Either way, there are no drivers to install. The PMD itself contains some installation files for added functionality, along with a bunch of folders containing several programs in each of about twenty different languages. These take up almost 700 MB of space, and when I realized what they were, I quickly moved them to my HP m7640n's native hard drive--I might need them for some strange reason. Note, however, that the one folder with a name longer than three letters is required to install the drive's extra software. Leave this folder and (re)move all the others.
Data transfers are fast enough. USB 2.0 has a maximum transfer speed of 480 MB/sec, so that's what the PMD will do. I haven't noticed any instances where that speed is in any way lacking.
Other that this, there isn't much more to say. The device is somewhat larger than I might have expected, though this is reassuring--it looks and feels solid, and it sports a case of tough plastic and brushed aluminum. The status LEDs are matched to the current Pavilion line (i.e. a blue static light and an amber access indicator), and the device fits flush inside its bay. It looks like a dream in there, and though the little plastic door on the m7640n's front panel can close over the PMD, I usually leave it open so I can see the extra lights.
All in all, I would recommend the 500 GB HP Personal Media Drive to those who own an HP Pavilion Media Center PC. For all others, it's just another external hard drive, and there exist other such external HDDs that are much cheaper per GB than the HP PMD. You pay a premium to enjoy the dual functionality offered by HP's product, and for that extra benefit I am happy.
 great drive August 23, 2007
LovesStories (Sacramento, CA USA)
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
My only "negative" comment about the drive is there is noticible fan noise, really not bad though. Otherwise, its worked just like I'd expect a USB2.0 hard drive to. I purchased the 500gig model (would have bought 1TB if available and affordable) to put in the media bay of my HP PC since didn't want to buy an external drive that would require its own power source, with yet another power cord to worry about.
I purchased this to act as my media library. Since I bought a video iPod last Christmas and some related software I've joined NetFlix and get 3 DVD's at a time to copy to the PC, then keep in iTunes to be available for the iPod. I record the movies at different qualities so the file size is anywhere from 500mb to 2gb for each movie - that chews up hard drives pretty fast since I generally keep both a large and small file for each movie in case we choose to watch it on TV instead of the iPod - the small 320x480 file size that is good for the iPod looks pretty bad on a 65" TV! I figure I have enough disk space to last till next April, then I'll have to buy more drives which will be an inconvience since its nice to have it built in to the PC. So far, this hard drive has been great, watching movies on it I experience no jitter, it plays the files just fine.
Software not compatible with windows vista March 22, 2007
kevin c (chicago, IL USA)
12 out of 17 found this review helpful
The product is rugged, quiet and has lots of memory. However, the CD is not compatible with windows vista and the driver failed to download. I can use the hard drive as extra memory space but cannot access the automatic back up function that comes with the disc. If you have windows XP, it is probably OK.
Look Ma....No wires!! December 31, 2007
J. Powell (New York, NY United States)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
I bought this drive to use for several purposes.
Storing media files such as photos and MP3/Itunes music files and for backing up data.
It has worked out wonderfully.
The nice thing about this drive is that it easily extracts from the drive bay in a compatible HP computer, but you can also simply use this as an external hard drive on any USB compatible computer.
I purchased the 500GB version, and haven't even come close to using all the space.
I notice now that they also have a 750GB version which really sounds wonderful.
I like to try to minimize the number of cords hanging from my CPU, so this really does the trick.
I could've probably purchased an external drive with the same capacity for slightly less money, but the convenience of this fitting snuggly into the HP chassis with no cords is the best option for fewer wires.
If you have an HP compatible computer, then this drive is GREAT. (Make sure your HP machine can accept the wider "Personal Media" drives. Some of the older HP's only accept the "Pocket media" drives, and that is a much smaller slot that will not accommodate this drive)
If you don't have an HP computer, but are thinking about migrating to a new computer and will consider an HP CPU, then you also might want to consider the ease of dumping everything on your old computer to this drive, and then just moving it over to the new HP, with this drive.
I was originally going to give this drive only 4 stars, based on what I perceived to be a slightly higher price, but when I went back and did the research, this drive actually came in on the low end of the comparisons, for comparable storage space. So I am going to bump it up to 5 stars overall.
If you are just looking for the most storage for your dollar. You should research other "external only" solutions for the best pricing. But there are many other factors that you would want to take into consideration. (such as transfer speed, disk lights, etc.)
Even as a stand alone external drive, this drive is very economically viable and competitive.
 Drive is showing signs of possible failure January 19, 2008
Donald D. Durbin (Salem, Ohio USA)
8 out of 12 found this review helpful
I am not sure what the warranty is on this drive. I have only had it since Mid October of 2007. I do not typically keep the paperwork with stuff like this. Most of the time it is not worth the trouble to get an RMA and send stuff like this back.
Over the Christmas holidays I began to hear a clicking noise coming from the system I have this drive in. At first I thought it was the computers original drive but I found that the clicking stopped when I removed this unit.
I believe that the clicking is the drive heads going into emergency retract after detecting a problem. This happens every 30 seconds or so. The drive immediately resumes normal operations. I have not seen any access problems with the drive and I have not had any data errors yet.
Western Digital drives had a rash of this problem a few years ago. I think you can still Google "Western digital drive click failure" and see the results.
I have also heard of drives that go on for a few years while acting like this.
When it finally goes, I will probably open up the unit and see whose drive is in it and then try to replace it with another drive.
My operating system is the Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. I am A+ certified and have over 30 years experience in computers and peripherals.
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