Jul 12, 2011 12:14 GMT  ·  By

Portable storage devices are usually meant to hook up to PCs and copy data to and from them, but it looks like current-generation ones, like Sony's HD-PG5, also work with certain TVs and other consumer electronics.

Having already said its piece on the NAND Flash storage industry, for now at least, Sony is now making a move on the spinning media field.

More precisely, after creating the 64 GB Micro Vault P, the company has now detailed the HD-PG5, a portable HDD that, rather than PCs, is primarily aimed at other pieces of equipment that one would find in end-user homes.

One of said other products are Handycam camcorders, off which the HDD will be able to automatically copy the videos and photos without a PC to act as a mediator.

Another thing one will be able to utilize the newcomer for is viewing video photos on a HDTV (by using PlayStation 3 game consoles as intermediary) and, record SD/HD content (when linked to Bravia TVs).

For those interested in the exact specifications of the portable HDD, it has a storage capacity of 500 GB, all packed inside a frame of 80 x 16 x 126 mm and which weighs 180 grams.

Being equipped with the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 connectivity, the theoretical maximum transfer rate is of 5 Gbps, although it remains to be seen if the drive really does take advantage of all that bandwidth (a threefold boost over USB 2.0 speeds seems to be the advertised advantage)..

Of course, when only USB 2.0 is present, the drive will still work, although limited to a speed of 480 Mbps.

Pre-loaded software includes a Backup Manager, FAT32 formatter, Password Protection Manager (relies on 256-bit security) and a Data Transfer Accelerator.

Unfortunately, though the HD-PG5 will start selling in a few days in the UK, Germany and France, its price is still unknown.