The internal drive is probably great; it won't fit in a laptop, but its probably great. And the software was really easy to use. The problem is that parallel port interface.

My laptop is pretty nice, pretty fast, and I try to keep it simple. I can't think of any *good* reason that the drive can't maintain a 4x writing speed other than design flaws in using the parallel interface.

Also, its *really* annoying that the driver software sends garbage characters through the parallel port to the printer whenever the machine is rebooted or turned on; imagine your printer cranking out a wasted page every single time you reboot.

Its a known problem for about a year now; but HP doesn't offer any fixes on their web site. The only workaround is to turn off the printer when starting or rebooting the computer. Turning off the drive doesn't work because the parallel interfaces don't "pass-through" the signals when the drive is turned off. :(

I'll be watching for HP to introduce a USB version of this drive before I recommend one to a friend.



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