HP PD1600 Pocket Media Drive 160 GB USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive

My brand new portable hard drive works great. I can just push it into the media bay drive on my HP Pavilion Slimline s3400f PC. My whole hard drive is backed up for personal use. It is also totally portable if I needed to transfer my files to a new computer or my laptop. As always the lowest price was on Amazon.

This product by HP is a very handy and portable media drive. It is well designed; comes in its own case and includes a twin usb connection cable. It is small enough to fit into a male's pocket. I find it to be more handy and cheaper than several flash drives adding up to its capacity of 160GB.

HP's Pocket Media disk drive is, may I say, a cute little device about the size of a small softback book. It easily plugs into any convenient USB port to receive or deliver stored data. I believed when I purchased it that it would fit into my Personal Media Drive compartment on the front of my HP computer tower, but it is too small for that. Like many of HP's product descriptions, you must read every word with care: 'Pocket Media' isn't the same as "Personal Media". Nevertheless, the little disk drive has the feel and look of a superior, well-constructed device typical of HP. I use mine to easily backup my main computer and to transfer files from one computer to another. It works for those applications just as you would expect.

The disk comes preformatted, ready to use with XP or Vista; comes with a quality leather-like carrying case, a short USB cable and instructions. You can probably find a similar device for a few bucks less in price, but none as attractive or well made. I would recommend this device to anyone who has a requirement for external backup or file transfers. I originally purchased this device because I had trouble with my native DVD driver which required a 'reload' of Vista. The DVD didn't work so I needed some easy way to salvage my data files before reformatting my main hard disk (since my DVD didn't work). The little PD1600 worked well.

I bought this drive to use in my new HP X280N MediaSmart Connect and it works GREAT!!! I can easily download family movies, music, photos and even torrented files directly to this device from my laptop...then just slide it into the HP X280N MediaSmart Connect and watch everything perfectly.

I would not buy this as an portable external hard drive. The Apricorn Aegis 160 GB Portable USB 2.0 Hard Drive with Integrated Cable & Software ( A25-USB-160 ) and the Western Digital Passport Essential Portable 250GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive (WDME2500TN)are both faster, smaller and less expensive external hard drives. However if you have an HP device that can accept the Pocket Drive it is perfect.

The HP PD1600 is convenient to use when you need to move data from one computer to another. However, it's capacity is too small to backup your system. With terabyte drives hitting the market, a 160GB backup drive doesn't cut it.