The BDP-1 does not read the Sony 2.5 hard disk (1TB) when it is attached directly. It works only with the hub.
It sounds like a power issue.
The Sony HD-E1 has a max power consumption of 4.5W which means it could take 900mA of current to spin up and initialize, more than the 500mA current supplied by the BDP-1 USB 2.0 port.
Although you don't likely have the second rear port unused and available, I would expect that it might work with a USB Y-cable (2nd USB plug wired for power only) and would not be at all surprised that it would continue to work if the 2nd plug was then disconnected - of course it would need the additional power again on the next power cycle.
There is not always a correlation between drive size and power requirements, and newer larger drives often have lower power requirements than older smaller drives. The Sony HD-E1 is primarily designed as a USB 3.0 drive (and USB 3.0 ports meet the 5V / 900mA / 4.5W requirements), but it does have a fallback USB 2.0 connection and should therefore have the capability to be bus powered by a standard USB 2.0 port.
I see this as a design flaw of this particular drive rather than a problem with the standard USB 2.0 / 500mA ports of the BDP-1, and wouldn't be surprised if the drive has problems with a number of other USB 2.0 computers and devices.
Steve
