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(More customer reviews)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.
Click Here to see more reviews about: HP Personal Media Drive 500 GB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive HD5000S
Data space may be the last frontier in the computing realm, and HP has designed these Personal Media Drives to handle the increased data storage needs of their Media Center computers. Speed of access is ensured with 7200 RPM rotation and USB 2.0 data transfer speeds up to 480 Megabytes per second. 500 Gigabytes Storage will ensure a place to store all of your video and photo data.Technical support:http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/support.html?pageDisplay=support or 800-474-6836
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