HP HD5000S Personal Media Drive 500 GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Reviews

• What can I say? Data security, great aesthetics, and versatility--sign me up!

  
  By A2WEF2MJ7MWNJT on 2006-12-25
  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

  
  By A1WFNRQYC3SU8P on 2007-08-23
  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

  
  By A3QJA5OHFXJ1JT on 2007-03-22
  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!!

  
  By A8WXLST0944GZ on 2007-12-31
  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

  
  By A3509QQ17LCKGP on 2008-01-19
  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.
  
  
• HP Personal Media Drive 500 Gig
  By A13ZX7Y7QXY329 on 2007-07-03
  HP HD5000S Personal Media Drive 500GB Unit works just as described and when inserted in the CPU keeps the work space clear, which is a plus if you have limited area. The price is about $100.00 more than you might spend for a comparabily sized external drive, but the product is well built and very simple to install and remove without worrying about cabling. Plus it is made by a company that I have come to trust in computing hardware. Finally, the greatest benefit for me personally is that I can remove the unit from my home PC and link it externally with any other USB PC. I hope this has helped you with your selection.
  
  
• Great Device
  By AYD2R1558WQJ3 on 2007-07-18
  This is a great way of expanding the storage capacity of your PC, HP has come out with newer version for Windows Vista. I reccomend PC users who have windows Vista to get the one that is Vista Compatible.
  
  
• Excellent drive, questionable backup software
  By A2UWAYVQSAGGVE on 2008-03-11
  The HP Personal Media 500 GB External Hard Drive is great. It works fine whether it is inserted into the Personal Media Drive Bay on my HP Media Center desktop computer, attached to a USB 2.0 port on that same computer, attached to a USB 2.0 port on my Toshiba Pentium 4 notebook computer, or attached to my wife's Dell Pentium 4 desktop computer. All three computers are running Windows XP with SP2. When attached to a regular USB 2.0 port, you do need to power the drive through the included AC adapter with power cord.
  
  Unfortunately, I have had major difficulties with the Roxio Backup MyPC 7 software that comes loaded on this external hard drive. In particular, the instructions contained in the external hard drive User Guide that pertain to installing the backup software on your PC are ambiguous or totally incorrect. I found that you have to use trial and error to determine how to install the backup software. I was able to install the software successfully on my HP desktop computer by double clicking "setup" within the folder titled "PMD." This took me to a screen that allowed me to install on my computer the Backup MyPC software and its User's Guide. The software worked fine in backing up the Drive C from this computer to the HP 500 GB external hard drive. On my Toshiba notebook computer, it appeared that I was able to install the backup software applying the same procedures. However, when I tried to use the installed software to back up some files to the external hard drive, a "Product Registration" screen came up that said that the backup software was already registered, but the screen would not let me cancel the registration, register the software again, remove the registration screen, or even access the backup program. I tried all kinds of procedures to remove the registration screen and to access the software. I finally had to restart the computer to get rid of the product registration screen. Since I am unable to use the backup software on my notebook computer, I uninstalled it on that computer. On my wife's Dell Pentium 4 desktop, I had to go to the "setup" file within the "BUMP" folder to install the software. The "setup" file within the "PMD" folder came up on the screen but provided nothing to click on to install the backup software or the software User's Guide.
  
  I love HP Personal Media External Hard Drives. This is the second one that I have purchased. The first was a 300 GB HP Personal Media Hard Drive that I purchased two years ago. It has been working flawlessly on all three of our computers. It came with Sonic Backup MyPC Special Edition for HP (which is actually version 5 of Backup MyPC--for which the Roxio version 7 is a newer version). The older version of the backup software works great on all of our computers whether using the older HP 300 GB external hard drive or the new HP 500 GB drive. The differences between version 5 and version 7 seem to be mostly cosmetic. However, the older version seems to be more stable, and I believe that it is easier to navigate.
  
  I highly recommend the HP Personal Media 500 GB External Hard Drive. However, don't be surprised if you have difficulties using the Roxio backup software that comes with it.
  
  
  
• Reliable, easy, solid.
  By A2YOG1A4MIIQM8 on 2007-03-17
  A great unit. Had it up and running in seconds. Fast USB 2.0 throughput. Recommended.
  
  
• NOT WORKING AND NO HELP FROM HP
  By A1TDQE1779XSEO on 2008-01-30
  Hi,
  Three days ago I purchased a HP Pavilion Media Center m8300f Desk top PC and the PERSONAL MEDIA DRIVE hd5000s (500GB).
  IT DOES NOT WORK IN THE COMPUTER AT ALL INTERNALLY OR EXTERNALLY.
  
  It does work on my Window XP externally.
  
  IF any of you have a working internal Personal Media Drive please let me know what you did or if you added any files and which ones. I have already added Rioxo.exe and done several elementary procedures suggested by HP. None help. I did retrieve some information from the HP Web Site stating there if a setup disk which has to be run for the DRIVE to be recognized as a Personal Media Drive. The drive is recognized by my computer by as K:\ and can not be used. I receive an error message box: "Location Not Available, K:\ is not accessible, Error Performing inpage operation."
  
  I contacted HP four (4) times and no one seems to be aware of this problem nor do they have a solution. HELP HELP.
  
  
• Personal Media Drive
  By A16R8XPTPG3QH9 on 2007-03-08
  Great Idea, costs more than a normal internal drive, can use as an external drive, so maybe is worth the price. Once plugged in, works like any USB drive.
  
  
• Hp Personal Media Drive
  By A1V3Q8QIQIQUUU on 2007-10-17
  The order was processed efficiently by Amazon.com. The unit arrived as scheduled. If you have a HP desktop the installation is easier than boiling water. Just open the PM bay and slide the drive in making sure the connector is positioned properly. Now when you power up your computer and after the system boots up you have 500GB of additional disk space. Enjoy. Very well designed unit. The fan noise is a little annoying but not really that bad.
  
  
• Easy to use and really quick
  By A35379MVUG9E0E on 2007-07-13
  2 seconds out of the box and that was it ... even without reading the instructions. I both store all my pics and songs from my HP media center.
  
  If I have some parties, I just take it out and that's almost all ...
  
  Really easy.
  
  One small drawback, the fan is a little bit loudy... even inside the PC.
  
  
• Does what it's supposed to
  By A14F944KDSP0XH on 2007-11-20
  Cheap, high-capacity storage. I just use it for backup periodically in case of failure of our primary drive. Also easy to pull out and go if we ever have to evacuate (not likely, but who knows? Would hate to lose all the kids' pictures!).
  
  Only beef: as soon as the rear touches the computer contacts it turns on (i.e., you don't have to press it firmly to engage). Unfortunately, this means you can't close the bay door without turning it on. So, mine is continually sticking out a bit from my computer and I have lost the sleek HP look as a result!
  
  
• Convenient Second Hard Drive
  By A1CP4R15ZGNJ4Q on 2008-05-02
  This 500 GB hard drive is very convenient if you have an HP media center computer as there is an empty front compartment on the HP computer waiting for this drive. You just slip it in and it automatically provides an extra 500 GB of storage. Unit also comes with USB cable and power cable if you use it with other computers or laptops. However, if you are going to do the latter, you can buy cheaper alternative from Western Digital [Elements HD that I have on my laptops]. I paid the extra $ for the convenience. Unfortunately, WD and other HD makers do not make units that fit directly into the HP compartment, even though WD or Hitachi probably makes the drive for HP.
  
  
• Good storage bang for buck
  By A1ZZP0R9L1KDTK on 2008-05-31
  If you have an HP computer that this drive will slide into, this is the best external hard drive you can get. No extra plugs or cables and changing between multiple drives is easy as cake. USB 2.0 limits speed a little, but other than that it's almost like having a quick change internal drive. Highly recommended.
  
  
• hp media drive 500G
  By A1U8B5V2ZV1TXC on 2008-06-25
  Ended up returning this product. Spent a week w/hp tech trying to get it to work. They finally concluded it was bad & I should return it. But they wouldn't accept the return w/o all original packing materials (which I no longer had). When I told them I wouldn't buy another HP because of their strict return policy, they offered to send me the packing materials needed to return the drive. I just returned to Amazon -- no original packing needed, no hassles. I may have just gotten a bad drive, and maybe generally there aren't problems, but I didn't like their attitude about the return. Their product was bad, they should have been offering to replace it with no hassles. I had to threaten not to buy their products before they decided to cooperate. Their tech (e-mail only -- phone help cost money, I believe) was polite, but not helpful. Most of their suggestions were pretty obvious and had already been tried before I contacted them.
  
  
• Perfect for me
  By A2UITY2296YZAY on 2007-09-24
  Works perfect with my HP Media Center. Just slide it into my "personal media drive bay" and you've got 500 Gigs (well 465 anyway) ready to go. Comes with auto backup software as well. Has it's own fan, and is easy to take anywhere. Sweet!!
  
  
• Great Price - Easy Install - Quick Shipment ....
  By A12ES506UPDYO1 on 2007-10-03
  can't get any better than this if you have an HP with this media drive. Went right from the box into the slot in the front of computer and voila - I know have an extra 500 gigs. Luv it!
  HP HD5000S Personal Media Drive 500GB
  
  
• Excellent external drive
  By A257X1MQJO82P2 on 2007-10-10
  I've been looking for an external hard drive and this one complements my desktop well.
  
  
• Excellent Product at a good price
  By A1WJGFLJ2W8GIO on 2008-03-15
  I bought the 500GB Media drive to use as a system backup for my new computer running Vista Ultimate. The system recognized the new hardware and it was up in running in no time after plugging it in. I have an HP media drive bay, so installation was VERY easy (just slide it in). However, having the external power source and USB connection for other machines is a real plus.
  I was doing backups with DVDs, and it would take forever, and required constant attention. Now, I can perform a backup by just slipping in the drive and letting it go. Transfer rate for backups is dramatically faster than for DVDs, so this drive has been a life-saver! I pull a monthly backup and then pull the drive for separate storage until the next backup time.
  Works flawlessley, and I actually got the 500 GB drive for about the same price as the 350 GB. A great investment for data security, and an excellent drive!
  
  
• I love it
  By A31BGUC1TM5MWD on 2008-04-12
  I bought this USB drive as replacement for another one. I already love it. I don't hear noise as the other one was doing. It is easy to install.
  Great product overall. I give 5 stars.
  
  
• GREAT Drive
  By A1S079QLKXXWVA on 2008-05-14
  HP HD5000S Personal Media Drive 500 GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive
  This is a great drive and even better if you happen to own an HP Media Center PC. It is very fast and enough room for storage to keep operating drive clean and working at its peak. The drive works either external on any pc with a USB port or in a personal media drive bay of the HP Media Center PC and it hot swappable. It is USB 2.0 but will work on 1.x. It comes with the NTFS file system so if you are using FAT you will have to reformat the drive.
  
  
• hp hd5000s - Great item for what it is intended
  By A1V3EQH0YXWQG3 on 2008-06-24
  Is there any reason to buy this harddrive if you do not have one of the hp computers it will doc in? No, not really. This is a nice external hard drive but it is pricey compared to other externals with similar/same features. The real reason and only reason to spend the extra cash is if you are using an HP system that has the dock this unit fits in. It is purely an aesthetic reason, I agree but it does finish the computer nicely filling in the hole and giving you the 2nd hard drive that you could not mount into the machine because of all the space the dock takes in the computer. If you just need an external hard drive, there are many good ones for less dime to go for. If you need the extra capacity in an hp that takes this drive, then it is your only choice.
  
  
• Excellent drive, but slide it into the bay the right way up!
  By A37ATTNV65TCZT on 2008-07-24
  This is a great drive if you have an HP Pavillion PC with the Personal Media Drive bay. Be sure to slide it in the right way up. It slides in easily if you have it correct. But there are no markings or install instructions to say this way up! If you have it the wrong way up, you will not be able to push it in all the way. However trying to do so may dislodge the internal connector so that it doesnt work when you put it in correctly! This isnt hard to fix. Just remove the covers of your PC and put the connector back in place. Perhaps this happened to some of the people that reported 'bad' drives! So I hope this helps.
  
  There is no reason to pay extra for this drive if you do not have a PC with the special bay. HP could save a few $$s by not including the power adapter and cables for use with other PCs. However, don't throw them away in case your PC fails, or for transporting files, and you need to use the drive (temporarily) on another PC.
  
  
  
• HP HD5000S Media Hard Drive
  By A3UQ5JKT7SIQM0 on 2008-09-13
  The drive works fine though the software was glitchy (possibly because I'm running VISA and this product may pre-date that.) Specifically, in one of the setup dialog boxes it asked me to checked certain boxes though no boxes were displayed. I did get some reasonably good assistance from service support which was live and spoke English pretty well.
  
  
• Great Backup
  By A6GWER7KD1WTO on 2008-09-24
  I recently purchased a HP with the drive bay,this drive is the right answer for all the backup needs you have,I like the way it plugs in and works right away.A small note,when you plug it in you have to make sure its all the way in,the lights turn on before its plugged completely in,fools you into thinking its doing its job but its not.Other than that small quirk it works great,fast write times and you dont have to format first,its already formatted.I pluggedit into a USB port first and it fired right up,so it works also as a portable.USB cord and power adapter is included.
  
  
• HP MEDIA DRIVE
  By A3BAY76F07QBIK on 2008-10-18
  Concept is great but the execution is flawed...after just a few weeks the drive started making a noise (just enough to be annoying and distracting when watching tv or gaming(installed in a media pc),and then the small cooling fan in the drive started making a constant noise as well,it would go away when undocked and if redocked but would come back again shortly.It was just too much noise and would probably lead to a complete failure due to overheating...so I will replace the current drive cage in the case and install 2-3 regular drives in the same place....a little extra work and $$$ for 3 TB of storage.
  
  
• Greatest thing I ever bought!!
  By A2ZLVYS10ZMUAX on 2007-09-26
  I love this drive. I am thinking of buying a 2nd one. It has plenty of storage for my photos, is easy to hook up to my laptop, then just plun into the front of my HP computer. Its the greatest.
  John
  
  
• Awesome Speed and Size
  By A2IHNN0YTPFHJW on 2007-10-01
  Worked right out of the package without any problems. Open, insert and bingo! 500gigs equaling 1tara bit for me! Awesome price, WOW.
  
  Carlos
  
  

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