Hands-On: HP SimpleSave Portable SD320a 320Gb Hard Drive

If you’re a regular reader of WGS, then you’ll know all about the benefits of backing up your computers. Indeed, it’s likely to be one of your primary reasons for purchasing, or thinking about purchasing, a home server. Not only is your data protected from accidental deletion, but you can relax in the knowledge that should you have a serious issue with your computer, your precious files and folders are safe from harm.

But there are millions of computer out there that aren’t backed up, and they’re owned by people that you know. If a home server is overkill for these guys (say, your parents, or less tech-savvy friends) what can they do to back-up and protect their data?

Enter HP’s new SimpleSave external hard drive range. Take a range of Western Digital 2.5” and 3.5” hard disks, clothe them in some funky piano black casings and whack on a simple, mum-friendly, automated data back-up application and you have yourself a smart storage solution that anyone can use to protect their photos, music, videos and other important data.

HP sent over the dinky 320Gb Portable Hard Drive to look at this week. Let’s take a look.

What’s in the Box?

Given the name, you’d expect the HP SimpleSave to be a pretty simple affair, and it doesn’t disappoint. Open up the box and you’ll find the hard drive, a short USB cable and a quick start guide. The great news with the portable hard drive range is that they’re powered by USB – no need for additional power cables, so it’s an ideal drive to pack in the case when you’re travelling.

First Looks

As you can see from the HP press shots at the top of the page, and our photos above, the drive’s design is minimalist utilising the high-gloss, piano black plastics seen on many of HP’s devices, including the HP MediaSmart Server. Just one socket for the USB cable, and a blue LED to show the drive is being accessed. Simple through and through.

Using the HP SimpleSave Portable Hard Drive

HP claim the SimpleSave’s backup is automatic and virtually hands-free. Plug it in and let it do the business. Let’s see what happens!

Confusingly, on the Windows 7 netbook I used to test the drive (a Samsung NC-10), plugging in the drive caused two different AutoPlay dialogs to appear, which immediately confuses the average user:

Clearly the former will kickstart HP’s backup software and the second allows you to do a number of additional things with the drive, however, it’s not the plug and play experience we were expecting. Clicking Run HPLauncher.exe starts the HP software.

Issue number two – the License Agreement dialog is sized at 800 x 600 so on this netbook (and I assume on most other netbooks out there) the Accept and Decline buttons are hidden behind the taskbar. You can just about scroll the dialog up to expose the buttons, but again the out of box experience could be considered confusing for the average user. It may sound like I’m nit-picking here (and I know this issue would only hit netbooks) but if you call a product “SimpleSave” you’ve got to make sure you deliver on both elements.

Once you’re through the License Agreement, the automated back-up begins.

Following a countdown, SimpleSave reviews the files that are on your computer, organises them into file types and then begins the backup. You can pause or cancel the backup at any time, although as HP have designed the application to be fixed height, without any scrollbars, if you’re on a netbook again the buttons will be hidden behind the taskbar.

If any of your files are in use during the backup, SimpleSave neatly pops up an alert asking you to accept a UAC prompt, and the backup will continue until completion.

A simple log file is available to view for each backup should you need it.

Elsewhere, you can configure a range of options for the application, including checking for software updates (the application will phone home for software updates before each backup if you wish), language options (11 languages are supported) and advanced options to include or exclude specific file types and folders.

Restoring files is equally simple. A restore option is available from the main menu which leads you through a simple wizard to identify and restore your folders and files. You can select everything, individual folders or files from the folder tree and can restore your data back to it’s original location or multiple other locations.

A monitor application saves new and changed files on the PC every five minutes as long as the drive is plugged into the PC and the application is smart enough to recognise and back-up multiple PCs in the home.

HP state that the 320Gb drive will provide sufficient storage for 30 hours of HD video, 80,000 MP3s or 64,000 JPEG photos which is plenty of space for most users – your mileage may vary depending the size of your files, but it’s certainly a lot of storage packed into a small, great looking form factor. A portable 500Gb drive is also available for $30 more if you need the extra room.

The full range of HP SmartSave drives include:

SimpleSave Portable: 320GB, $119.99; 2.5-inch hard drive, 500GB, $149.
SimpleSave Desktop: 1TB hard drive , $149.99; 2TB hard drive, $329.99

Conclusion

Overall, the HP SimpleSave is a great solution for those that need an easy to use, automated back-up application, The user interface is warm and friendly so it won’t scare off the average user (a free dog icon with newspaper available with every purchase), and with options starting at 320Gb up to 2Tb, there’s plenty of space available for large collections of data. The 2.5” Western Digital drive is fanless and almost silent, which is also great news.

There are a couple of annoying usability issues however which lead to the SimpleSave not quite achieving its goal. With a little extra testing on a wider range of PCs, these design quirks could have been easily avoided. Hopefully they’ll be fixed in a subsequent software update.

Update: A fix is indeed being worked to provide better support for netbooks. An auto update with this fix will be available in a few weeks.

In the meantime, with just a little bit of guidance required, the HP SimpleSave will make a perfect gift for your less tech-savvy family and friends.