HP HD7500S Personal Media Drive 750 GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Reviews

• Perfect Fit

  
  By A1GZT25B9K9ILO on 2008-01-09
  This Personal Media Drive is a perfect fit for the HP Pavilion m9040n. My HP downloaded the drives automatically. There is no software. It's just plug n' play and unlike some other reviewers, I haven't noticed any noise at all coming from the fan on my pc or the drive itself.
  
  There are less expensive add on hard drives out there but they are external. The Seagate Free Agent series comes to mind as a good external hard drive in my experience. But, if you have an HP or Compaq that will accomodate the Personal Media Drive internally, then it's worth the extra money in my opinion. I agree with another reviewer who said "I feel like this drive completes my HP".
  
  Of course, I'm sure that it was HP's plan all along to create a situation where the HP buyers feel compelled to drop a couple of hundred bucks or more on the HP hard drive instead of a cheaper external drive. It worked.
  
  

• Great, compact drive - especially if you own an HP with a Media Drive bay

  
  By A2ARDVMUGDFED6 on 2007-12-12
  To start off this review, I'd like to point out that this drive DOES work with HP models other than those included in the description. My HP m9040n claims it only supports 500MB Personal Media Drives and 160MB Pocket Media Drives, but this 750GB drive worked perfectly and was recognized instantly.
  
  I've owned a number of external hard drives, and this is by far my favorite. The 750GB gives you 698GB of usable space (using the 1GB = 1000MB standard).
  
  If you have an HP with a Personal Media Drive bay, this simply slides in and receives power and USB connection from the PC, so no additional cables are needed. To plug it into a non-HP machine, it includes a power adapter and USB Cable - I was a bit disappointed with how the power adapter is set up (it's a thick 3-pronged power cable, much like the one used to plug in your computer or monitor, which then plugs into a power brick and then into the drive itself - not the most portable if you plan to use it on the go). I would have also liked a firewire connection as the USB speeds can be limiting, especially if you have a large number of USB devices in use.
  
  The drive is very quiet (compared to my WD Mybook, it's almost completely silent). The fan also lines up with the slots in the back of HP machines to allow airflow when used in a personal media drive bay.
  
  I've used this drive for a few weeks and find it to be reliable so far - I haven't had it "disappear" like other drives have, it also hasn't given me errors when transferring files (even a 550 GB file transfer to the drive went without problems - it just took many hours!).
  
  Streaming video content works fine (no stuttering). I havent tried any of the backup functions yet, but HP machines that have a drive bay for it also have an "Easy Backup" button on the system. Very satisfied with the drive and would buy another the next time I need a new drive.
  
  

• completed system

  
  By A2WNSCLFPTWW7K on 2007-12-08
  Marvelous addition to my new HP Pavilion Media Center desktop computer. Drive slid into designated slot and immediately started up. The computer took a minute or two to recognize the new drive but one recognized has worked flawlessly. I like the look of the drive in the slot and will leave the cover door open to ventilate and show off.
  
  Using build-in software have already ran a backup and file verification of "C" drive in under 7 hours (almost 140 GB of data saved). I have not been troubled by any fan noise. Only issue remaining regards the pro-loaded files on the drive which consume over 50 GB's of memory. Near as I can tell most are foreign language versions of application and instructions. Can I safely delete them without HP coming and knocking on my door?
  
  
  

• wrong drive

  
  By A189O54J78BMKQ on 2007-08-13
  This is a good drive with a lot of storage but Amazon has mislabeled this product. I bought it because it is called a "pocket media drive" which would fit the pocket media slot on the front of my HP computer. What Amazon is actually selling is a "personal media drive" which is way too big to fit the slot on an HP computer.
  
  

• Verry good hard drive

  
  By A2S4ZVRE0H7ETU on 2007-11-12
  This hard drive works great on my HP media center computer, it fits right in the opening for it. If you are looking for an external drive that fits in your HP PC this drive works on personal media drive aplications not pocket media drive.
  
  
• It's Personal, Not Pocket
  By A3FK1HIZTU7FZB on 2007-12-05
  Amazon's heading correctly identifies this as "Personal" Media Drive, but in the Technical Details, and Product Description, it says "pocket" media drive. This ambiguity creates confusion.
  My HP uses the Personal (larger) format drive and has the larger slot, but some of them use the smaller "pocket" slot.
  Amazon should fix this.
  
  
• Good Drive but fan is LOUD
  By AE2BQ1ILLTCHT on 2007-12-04
  Either installed in the HP Media computer or standalone on the desk, when the fan comes on it's way too loud. I am returning it.
  
  
• Easy, quick, a bit noisy
  By ATT8MQ4H9EZA2 on 2008-03-23
  This well built USB hard drive has enormous capacity and good design with two colored lights in front to show power status and activity. In this case, "well built" also translates into large. The unit itself isn't small, and when you add in the box on the power cord, there's lots of hardware. On the other hand, if you own an HP media computer with a media drive bay, it couldn't be more elegant. Out of the box, you simply slide the drive into the bay until it firmly seats. That's all. You're done. Power up the computer and you have tons more storage.
  
  Given the slight price premium for such elegance, this unit would still be perfect if it weren't for its internal cooling fan. Now, I'm not a novice when it comes to noise control, and the Hp media computers aren't all that quiet themselves when they get their board, drive, and graphics fans all going at once. And, since the drive simply slides into the bay with some aligning ridges, there's bound to be some vibrational noise.
  
  All that being said, the cooling fan in the unit is a virtual orchestra of hums, whoops, whines, wails, and shrieks. I've gotten into the habit now of putting the computer to sleep when I'm out of the room. I woke in the middle of the night to a high pitched whine which I eventually determined was the drive fan. I put the computer to sleep, and I got some.
  
  In fairness, it may simply be a "burn-in" problem, as it seems to have somewhat quieted down. It still murmurs occasionally but overall it seems to have settled down to a sullen mutter rather than its former rebellious yell.
  
  One note of caution: Most if not all backup programs will see this as an external drive, and not see this drive as part of your computer. MS OneCare automatic backup will see it as a backup device but not as a computer drive. It won't back it up. If you're using it for initial storage you'll need a configurable backup program like GoodSynch or NovaBackup.
  
  Overall, if the unit continues to calm down aurally, it will be perfect. If not, it'll just be quite good. Not bad either way.
  
  
• Great backup drive
  By A27X7S5EZQDGA8 on 2008-01-12
  I purchased 2 of these drives to use as backup. I keep one at work and the other in the computer to do differential backups each night. IT slides right into the personal media bay of the m9040n. Perfect. I agree with the other reviewers that Amazons mislabeling it as a pocket media drive could be confusing, especially if you have not done your homework to know what you are buying. Man I wish they had a 750GB pocket media drive. Now that would be nothing short of amazing.
  
  
• Great!
  By A2JK0GG1C0GXQQ on 2007-11-17
  This is a great Hard Drive for Any Computer. I have a Dell Laptop and I wanted a Big Hard Drive that would look good on my desk but was also compact enough to take it on the go. Its fast, I copied 50+ Gbs to it in less than an hour. It has a fan so it never really gets hot (just a little noisy, but its not that loud.) The only problem i have had is after i copied a lot of movies on to it, I wasn't able to safely disconnect it so i had to shut my computer down to unplug it. Haven't had any problems since then. Highly Recommended.
  
  
• So far, so good
  By A1TMYNXWXL0DTQ on 2008-03-07
  I am very happy so far with my new HP Personal Media Drive. It seems to perform as well or better than I expected and is not as loud as I expected from some of the other reviews. You can't beat the way it fits right into the slot in the front of the HP computers. It is extremely convenient for HP desktop owners with a Personal Media Drive Bay. I would definitely recommend it to someone if they were looking for an external hard drive.
  
  
• 750 GB HP Personal Media Drive
  By A1L2OMEV9RG9UY on 2008-04-07
  I bought a new HP PC to be an HTPC (Home Theater PC). It has two 320GB hard drives and a dual tuner (ASTC/NSTC), so I use it watch OTA (over the air) HDTV and basic cable channels. I bought it because I wanted PVR for my OTA HDTV, but after I got it, I started copying my DVD library (movie only) to my HD to have them available at the click of a button. This was causing me to quickly run out of HD space.
  
  This drive was a great addition to my new PC. It more than doubled my out-of-the-box HD size (to nearly 1.4TB). I moved all my DVDs to it (about 80 so far) and I still have room for about 20-30 more.
  
  It tucks very nicely into the HP Media Bay on the front of the PC. I really like the idea of being able to easily grab my HD and take it to a friends house to watch a movie.
  
  I may get another in the future, but with only one Media Bay in the front of the PC, it won't be as convenient, and I may just add an additional internal HD. But, if you have a free HP Media Bay available, this drive is great.
  
  
  
• Easiest hard drive I have ever installed
  By A1T8Q1RAN6XC0I on 2008-04-11
  Excellent buy. Plugged it into the Personal Drive Bay (shoved it in) and did the format. It said that it had been formatted but it was obviously done by XP, so I did a "quick" reformat.
  
  The drive is lightning fast.
  
  Software installed (utilities) are for XP, and would not run in Vista.
  
  Easiest hard drive I have ever installed. Oh, I cannot hear it running and the lights are nice and visible.
  
  
• Great Accessory for Your HP Desktop
  By A1HNA3KVTCV1U7 on 2008-05-12
  This huge hard drive works incredibly well in conjunction with select HP desktops that have a storage bay... and using an external power supply and USB cable (both included) it will connect to any other computer.
  
  The one drawback is that you need to carry around the external power supply for this drive when you're using it with other machines.
  
  Other than that, this thing is perfect.
  
  
• Easy to use
  By A21TO9LJEXXVGR on 2008-03-28
  Lots of space and easy to use on any HP Media Center or USB 2.0 compliant computer. It is a bit noisy in my media center computer, though. The fan always seems to kick on in the middle of the night and not shut off. The backup software that comes with it is nice.
  
  
• Great Product
  By AIO9GK12MJF5Q on 2008-03-28
  The H.P. Personal Media Drive has been trouble free and working great from the time I installed it. It is very easy to install, quiet and has worked perfectly with the Windows Vista operating system I have. No complaints.
  
  
• Great Secondary HD,
  By A2X7ENONM8DE1T on 2008-04-27
  A little expensive, but if you don't want those external ones, then this one is for you.
  
  
• 750Gb less 6.7% ... should advertise as 700Gb drive
  By A3N87ODNW4BF44 on 2008-05-22
  HP HD7500S Personal Media Drive 750 GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive
  I bought two... very cool installation in the HP Media Center... plug and play. Easy to switch them out... unplug one, plug the other in. Ta-dah!
  
  Downside: They are advertised as 750G, says it has about 61Mb on it, but when I looked at My Computer Details... it only has 698Gb of space, and all of that is available. That's 52Gb short. Why is that? Standard problem... all hard drives come up short by 5-8% due to defects in the disk. The problem could be expected to be worse at extremely high density storage. As it happens, 52Gigs comes in at 6.7%. Still, they should advertise it as a 700Gb drive.
  
  Also, I really wanted a couple of 1Tb Personal Media drives. Will buy that when it comes out, and make due with this for now.
  
  I guess I'll keep 'em.
  
  
• HP Personal Media Drive
  By AV51OVEPT68BU on 2008-06-02
  The personal Drive it self is great. The Roxie software that came with it didn't work at all and the instructions didn't tell you that you had to hook it up as a external drive first before you could plug it into the media bay.
  
  
• Great drive until it stopped working
  By A28XD9VKNGW52L on 2008-10-30
  I bought this drive approximately 10 months ago. It installed wonderfully and performed flawlessly for several months. I started to hear the fan make noise and it apparently went out. The drive may have overheated and either corrupted the drive firmware or damaged the PCB controller. The drive still spins up, but I cannot see it anymore even when removing from the case and directly connecting to my computer via the SATA interface. It costs several hundred dollars to retrieve the data form the drive.
  
  
• What You Pay for
  By A3QA0B0ZI9EBYN on 2007-12-27
  Formats to around 689 available gigs of space. Already have the personal media drive slot built into my Hewlett Packard so the quick slide fitting was perfect. The fan isn't noticeable unless your ear is directly on the CPU. Otherwise, the noise is adequate and not harming to me since I turn it off to go to sleep.
  
  Great present for Christmas.
  
  
• another good product from HP
  By A3QQGPI3CTV9SX on 2008-01-25
  It more than serves it's purpose and easily slides into my HP Quad desktop and makes things simple and has a huge storage capcity. Thanks HP!
  
  
• 750 Gigs!
  By A1IC54I8HTYJRS on 2008-02-10
  This products performs flawlessly and is much more convenient than installing a 2nd internal hard drive. Best part is you can take it with you anytime and carry your collections to other computers. Costs a little more but worth it!
  
  
• HP HD7500S Media Drive 750GB
  By A39TM7WGFNPHML on 2008-02-14
  This unit arrived within a week of placing the order it slotted right into the bay on my HP Media Center and has worked flawless since installation, I will purchase another unit for my other HP computer in the coming weeks.
  
  
• almost portable, but not really!
  By AED9U0EPYPY47 on 2008-02-15
  If you have an HP Pavilion desktop PC with the personal media drive bay, then this is an absolute must have...especially if the PC is Windows Media Center edition. I bought the HP Pavilion m8300f and I added this 750GB Personal Media Drive to the already exsisting 640GB HD for a total of 1,400GB (or 1.4TB) storage. Just to give an idea, a 2-hour movie that's recorded & stored is approx 7-8GB, so it adds up fast. Admittedly, this HP Personal Media Drive is not really portable in the classic sense as compared to Western Digital's Passport series. I use the WD 250GB in addition to my Sony VAIO notebook PC when I'm on the road travelling.
  
  
• Get It
  By AZS01L4YXVAFM on 2008-03-01
  An excellent product. It's worth the slight extra cost over other external hard drives just because you can slide it into the slot of some HP computers. Be aware that it should be inserted or removed only when the computer is shut down.
  
  
• Great addition to my Media PC
  By AN49QCM69ZSG1 on 2008-03-06
  750GB is a great size in a small package that slides right into the front panel of my m8000 Media Center PC. I take a lot of digital photographs and this is a great device for cataloging and processing large numbers of large RAW photos. The price was reasonable, though not cheap, at $228.00. If the price drops, I might just buy another.
  
  
• Personal Media Drive
  By A3PJ4L1MZNXGF6 on 2008-03-27
  HP HD7500S Personal Media Drive 750 GB USB 2.0 External is wonderful.It is very portable.When inserted into my media center it performs perfect.Great back up and great for tranfering info from one computer to another.Highly Reccommend;especially if you have an Hp for direct hook up..
  
  
• Excellent
  By A2T0QLB3E11MVI on 2008-03-31
  This is one of the best purchases I have made in a while. I've downloaded a ton of music files on this and plenty of room left. Good for sharing files with friends it has all the right hook-ups, just pull it out and let them plug into their computer.
  Loaded up a couple of movies on this to play elsewhere in the house and worked fine thru a laptop, just had to select the right output.
  Nice compact and seems very durable. Nothing bad to say about it except the price but that's just me - I'm cheap.
  
  
• HP Personal Media Drive
  By ACD347D2F1RUO on 2008-04-02
  HP HD7500S Personal Media Drive 750 GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive
  When HP upped the ante and created a 750 GB Personal Media Drive, it fit my needs. I've put 700 GB of WAV files on it and my main drive is still fairly empty. Perfect for music, photos or video. Excellent
  
  

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