The 80GB HP Pocket Media Drive PD800 ($130 direct) is kind of like the old SyQuest data cartridges. You can use it in the same way, to back up your computer's data or to transfer large files without having to resort to a slow network. This pocketable drive lets you transfer up to 80GB at a time from a computer in one location to another (say, from your house to a friend's). It's geared mainly toward people who already have HP Pavilion desktops with the HP Pocket Media Drive bay installed, but the drive works on all PCs—and Macs too—via a USB cable.

The Pocket Media Drive (PMD here, for brevity's sake) is an 8- by 4- by 1.4-inch slab with a single curved edge. The edge is designed to slip easily into a Pocket Media Drive Bay on recent HP Pavilion desktops such as the a1600 and a1700 series. These drives are designed more for portability than capacity, as seen by their 80GB and 120GB ($180 direct) sizes. Their relatively modest capacities are a result of HP's use of notebook-class drives. The PMDs are dwarfed by their big brothers, the HP Personal Media Drives, which use desktop-class drives that can hold up to 500GB. Personal Media Drives are found in higher-end HP Media Center PCs such as the Digital Entertainment Center z565; and the m7400 series of Media Center towers. Unfortunately, because the Personal and Pocket drives differ in size, their drive bays are also different, so you can't use Personal Media Drives in the Pocket Media bays and vice versa.

You can use the PMD, which has a 5,400-rpm rotational capacity, to back up either your important business files or your digital life. It's also good for transferring large files such as raw video from one computer to another. Or you can use it just to add to the storage space on your desktop. The PMD slides right into a special drive bay on several midrange HP Pavilion PCs—just like an 8-track cartridge or an old-school Nintendo game. Pop the drive in, and it will show up in Windows XP or Vista as a hard drive. When you're done, simply push the eject button to reclaim the drive. Its 80GB will hold tens of thousands of photos or MP3 files, or dozens of hours of video.

The carrying case is nicely designed. You can use the drive in the case with a USB cable, while retaining unencumbered access to the drive-access light. The PMD's dual-head USB cable is convenient if you have an older laptop with dual USB ports next to each other, but less convenient when the USB ports are on opposite ends of the notebook. I'd like to see a longer-reach cable, like those bundled with Seagate's ST9160821U2-RK 160GB portable drive. The other end of the cable is notable because HP, thankfully, used a full-size connector instead of the mini-USB connector found on most pocket-sized drives.

The PMD comes with a copy of Sonic BackUp MyPC SE backup software. You can also use the PMD with Windows Vista's backup utility or the admittedly weak one in Windows XP. Look to more capable programs like EMC Retrospect; or CMS' BounceBack Professional; if you're a power user who needs more granular control over your backups, full disaster recovery, and the like.

My Windows Explorer-based drag-and-drop copy test of our standard 1.2GB folder took 49 seconds, on the fast side for an external USB 2.0 drive. Most USB 2.0 drives take about a minute to do this task.

The PMD has a more specialized shape than the 80GB versions of drives I've looked at in the past—such as the Western Digital Passport (120GB version); and the Seagate USB 2.0 portable drives—owing to its need to fit into the Pocket Media Drive bay. The HP's full-size connector is more robust (and less likely to break) than the flimsier mini-USB connector on the Western Digital and Seagate drives. The WD Passport and Seagate drives are likely to be less expensive on a dollar-per-GB basis, but if you have one of the supported HP Pavilion desktops, the HP 80GB Pocket Media Drive is worth the extra cost.