After seeing Sony’s first-gen 80GB drive with security, the VGP-UHDM08 , I was ready to pull out the plastic and buy one. However, the larger-than-expected size and AA battery requirement gave me pause. Not long after, Sony announced a new portable drive with security, the VGP-UHDP04. I picked one up in silver and have been using it for a couple of weeks.

After seeing the product page , I was worried that this drive too would use AA batteries. Luckily it was just a typo, and the drive is solely bus-powered. The drive is nice and small, roughly the size of a full-size iPod but a little shorter and thicker. It’s got a good amount of heft to it as well, and the enclosure is sleek and stylish, with brushed aluminum and glossy black plastic reminiscent of the PSP. It comes with a thin USB cable, lightly-padded slip case, and two wireless keys used for the security function.

The security feature is easy to use and relatively unobtrusive. To bond the keys with the drive, just push a button on the back of the drive and touch the key to the black area at the top. On subsequent times you plug the drive in, it will stay locked and will not mount until you touch the key to the black part. You can also use the drive with the security feature turned off, which I’m currently doing since there’s nothing important on it at the moment. If you lose the keys, Sony says you’re out of luck, so keep one in a safe place just in case!

The hard drive inside the case is our old friend the 1.8” Toshiba MK4004GAH two-platter drive. Nice 1.8” enclosures are tough to come by, and I’ll definitely be upgrading this once the MK8007GAH 80GB drives are available in quantity.

I’m not sure it’s totally worth the cash, as I bought my 30GB video iPod for the same price ($280) and only had to give up 10GB of hard drive space in exchange for a color screen, video and audio playback, and other goodies. Then again, it’s Sony, so we’re all used to this kind of thing by now! 

Pics:

The box

Oops at the box factory!

The contents

Solidly built, though a little on the thick side

Ye cute little drive! It definitely looks thicker than my 80 gig VAIO drive . I have been using it for a while now, and had no problems at all. As far as security keys, I read somewhere that you can order one from Sony parts center in case you lost yours. I am not using this security feature for now since I am not storing any sensitive info on it.
:wink:

Is there anyway to take this apart and install a bigger 1.8” hard drive?
I did it with my TR1/b from the walkthrough on this site.
Now I am using a tx770/p I LOVE this enclosure but 40gb is not enough I want to throw in 80. Any thoughts?
thanks