HP Personal Media Hard Drive - 500GB - 7200rpm - USB 2.0 - USB - External - RF863AA#ABA

I needed an external hard drive and made the mistake of ordering a Simple Tech drive because I was impressed with the price and the flashy design - big mistake. I had no end of problems so I ordered the HP drive and the difference was night and day. I say that so far I've had no problems because I've read reviews of other drives and people have said they have failed. However, as I write this I've been using the drive for almost a month and it has performed flawlessly. Windows XP had no problems recognizing the drive Compared tot he Simple Tech. Simply put, don't fall for cheap prices, if you pay a little extra you get better value for money.
 
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Drive is working excellently! Out of the way by putting in the media port on my hp desktop computer which is out of the way (not on the floor or desk with all the other cables and peripherials)and crosses to the laptop easily with the usb cable. Can't be happier with the purchase
 
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I ordered this drive because it could slide easily into my Hp computer, and the buy.com price was great. Just be careful to slide it in correctly! I accidently put it in backwards, not noticing the grooves in the port--the directions have no words,and do not show the grooves. I needed an extra set of hands to pull it out and flip it, and I also called HP to be sure it was safe to do so--they even helped me set it up and make sure it would work.
 
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I ordered the HP 500GB Personal Drive on Monday, and it arrived at the house Tuesday night. There are very little in the way of instructions, just a folded sheet with pictures showing the operation. I plugged the drive's power cord in, and attached it to our old computer's USB port, and it was, immediately, recognized. To down load our pictures from our old PC, about 56 GB worth, took about 27 minutes. I then unpluged it and slid it into our new PC, which had a Personal Media Drive bay. It was immediately recognized by that PC, and I could, instantly, call up any of the files I had just downloaded. The drive was fast, and worked flawlessly. I will clarify that by saying both PC's were HP manufactured, but there were no issues at all.
 
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I bought my HP computer without giving much thought to the drive bays. After getting it home ,I wasn't really sure they were a feature. When Buy.com advertised this drive with a decent size and price that was competitive with other external drives I decided to give it a try. The drive works well, it intgrates with the HP backup program and not having to contend with a USB cableand a power connection or finding space on the desk was welcome. I'm not a neat-freak by any means, but if you could see my computer table you'd understand why. It's not a reason to buy an HP computer, but if you have one, put the ports to use.
 
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HP does not build most of the things it sales but contracts them out. Their problem is that each manufacturer of a product does their on thing with the software so you could buy a scanner and a printer at the same time and they would have two different versions of the same software. The backup software will not work on my computer because I have had HP software installed before and have not had anything but problems with HP. Had I known that HP was the backup software I would not have purchased the hard drive. The HD itself is great I just have to find a different software for backup. Russ
 
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It received the item in good brand new condition and it works fine.BUY.COM your the best.Keep up the good work and I'll be back. Thank you.
 
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I simply plugged this into the designated bay on my HP M7470n and it took right off. I was putting data on it in seconds.
 
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Kewl and quite easy to use... storage galore. I don't think it would be so kewl if I didn't have an HP computer however. I have a couple other external usb hard drives that would be more convenient - this one is a bit too big to carry traveling but with 500Gigs one can see why. Glad I bought it so far but too soon to say about reliability
 
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It looked like it would, but no where in the description of the product did it specify that it would fit into the HP media bay. It simply stated that it was a USB External Harddrive. Of course, it looks just like the shape of the media bay, so I bought it anyway. Of course, it must be the logical assumption that it is made for the HP media bay--but I need things like that spelled out, even the obvious. :) It works great--just plug it in, self-installs software, and you're ready to back up your data at the touch of a button. Excellent harddrive!
 
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Upon removing the hard drive from the box and holding it in my hands I could see it was quality made. It has a nice metal finish outside and rounded corners to fit the drive bay in the HP M8200N computer recently purchased. It fits inside the drive bay easily and with just enough pressure as you push it in place it connects and is quickly detected by the operating system and ready for use as it's already formatted in NTFS format. The fan is quiet so there is no noise to worry about. To remove the drive from the drive bay you simply grasp the built in handle and pull straight out and it's out with little effort. It comes with a power supply and USB cable so if you need to use it to backup or copy files to another computer without a drive bay it's easy to attach and use. It has a nice hefty feel to it and looks good. The fit and finish are top quality. Once again, thank you Buy.com for a great buying experience!
 
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Great hard drive. Fast and convenient. I have two HP desktop computers both with "Personal Media Drive Bays". I love that I can just pop it out of one and take it to the other. You pay a bit more for the convenience. There are cheaper external drives out there but they are a little troublesome. Along with the drive you have to carry around and hook up both a USB cable and power supply cord. The HP Personal Media Drives just slide in with no cables at all. Great product, thanks.
 
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Take out of box. Place in slot on HP PC. Ready. Set. GO! All my tunes and vids are on it and now there's more room on my home theatre PC's HDD for recording TV shows. Best of all, I can yank it out and pop it into another HP with a slot OR use the power and USB cables to add, delete, or update all of my tunes and vids. This is the cheapest price ANYWHERE! And it was brand new. Buy.com, you're the best-est!
 
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We purchased this hard drive as we had bought a new HP computer that had the custom external hard drive "slot" built right into the computer. We can just "pop" the external hard drive into the "slot" built into the side of the computer and we are good to go. We can also use this external hard drive - simply as that - without the custom slot. The price was extremely competitive with other external hard drives, and the custom slot was an added plus to purchase this product. We are primarily using the hard drive to backup our important files and so far the speed and ease of use has been great.
 
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