HP's Backup: Not Quite in the Pocket

This media drive works reliably and quickly, but the price is too steep and the software complicates what should be easily scheduled backups

by Aaron Ricadela

Editor's Rating:

The Good: Quick, portable way to keep lots of data backed up; it also fits into HP's desktop PCs

The Bad: Backup software suffers from convoluted design; best to skip it and simply drag and drop

The Bottom Line: HP keeps improving its Pocket drive line to deliver more value, but this price is still high

Reader Reviews

Hewlett-Packard has been on a roll lately, turning out good-looking computers and printers that people want to use. So in my search for a portable hard drive that might let me back up data on the fly without putting much thought into the task, I decided to give HP's Pocket Media Drive a whirl.

Like many of HP's (HPQ) consumer products from the past couple of years, the Pocket drive features smooth, rounded edges and vivid packaging—a green-and-black box festooned with a bright orange hand—ostensibly suggesting human qualities. Would HP's helping hand make my data backup experience warm and fuzzy?

On the plus side, I found that the Pocket Media Drive copied files from my Dell (DELL) laptop with lightning speed when I dragged and dropped them over the device icon. And the drive didn't fall down on the job even once during a month of daily use. On the down side, HP's price of $129 for 120 gigabytes of storage capacity in the model I tested is somewhat higher than what rivals charge. And the truly awful "automatic" backup software from Sonic Solutions (SNIC) that comes installed on the drive prevents me from giving a wholehearted recommendation of this product.

Quick Connection and Copying

The Pocket Media Drive, which works only with Windows PCs, falls in the same class of devices as LaCie's sleek, black Little Disk (BusinessWeek.com, 11/7/07), which costs $110 for 160 gigabytes of memory and also works with Macs. Both devices are meant for professionals, students, and parents who want a fast, easy way to either back up files as protection again a computer crash or have ready access to their presentations, photos, and video clips on other machines.

Measuring 5.5 inches long, 3 inches wide, and three-quarters of an inch thick, the Pocket comes in the industry's standard drab shades of gray and black. The device came with clear set-up instructions that really weren't needed to simply connect the drive with its USB cable to my computer. A 14-page manual in PDF format loaded on the drive itself was also straightforward. But consumers should avoid downloading the product data sheet from HP's Web site. This document is in need of a good copy editor; the number of mistakes was irksome.

In my tests, it took the Pocket about a minute and a half to back up 560 megabytes of data from Windows' My Documents folder to the drive. While this was a smidgen faster than a similar backup by LaCie's device, the Little Disk features marginally better software, looks a lot better, and costs $40 less. But HP's prices are getting more competitive as it upgrades the product line. The company is phasing out the 120-gigabyte model I tested and an 80-gigabyte version, making way for a 160-gigabyte Pocket drive priced at $150 and a 250-gigabyte model priced at $190.

Automatic Backup Blues

I also can't recommend the Sonic backup software HP chose to include on this drive. Creating a scheduled backup involved considerable head scratching over the software's confusing directions and prompts. At one especially puzzling juncture, the software's default choice for where to back up my files was not the Pocket drive but the computer's DVD drive. Figuring out how to point the software at the Pocket was a five-minute process. That solved, making a backup involved scrolling around an undersized window just to see the full list of files and folders I might want to copy onto the drive.

But when it came to just dragging and dropping the files I work with daily onto the drive, the Pocket didn't disappoint. Backing up three folders' worth of photos and documents took about a second. And while the Pocket drive draws its power from your PC, the device didn't noticeably drain the battery of my laptop even when it was unplugged.

The Pocket also offers an unusual virtue for HP computer users. The device slides into an open bay on certain HP desktops (Pavillion, Pavillion Slimline, Pavillion Elite, and TouchSmart), enabling users to back up their files with a single push of a button on the PC's front. Since I don't have an HP machine, I didn't test this feature.

If HP manages to get its prices down a bit and finds a new software vendor to work with, its Pocket Media Drive might soothe my file-storage woes. Until then, I'll still be singing the backup blues.

Ricadela is a writer for BusinessWeek.com in Silicon Valley.