HP MediaSmart EX475 Server - GG796AA#ABA
HP EX475 1TB Mediasmart Windows Home Server

First, there is one shortcoming -- if you use Vista 64bit, there is still no native client for Windows Home Server (although it is promised any day now). However, I can RDP to the box (in which case it looks exactly like any win32 server), map network drives to it and do everything else except run the automated backup and iTunes auto-mirroring on my Vista64 laptop. Beyond that, it's an exceptional device. Here's what you get, and I swear you can set this up in half an hour even if you're not a geek. - 500Gb of fully redundant usable network storage. WHS uses "Folder Duplication" which you can turn on and off on a per-directory basis. - a print server - hook any USB-friendly printer up to the box and use it from anywhere on your network. - a media server - park all your video on the box and access from anywhere in your network. - a central iTunes server - and it will find and coalesce anything in iTunes from all the computers in your network (amazing) - a photo server - copy all your photos to the box and access them from anywhere...bringing me to the next item... - full remote access to the server from anywhere - never worry about those files you left at home. And if you have a router that supports DynamicDNS, you can register with gotdns or dyndns, put this box in your DMZ, and access it by domain name for free (don't pay for the services offered by the setup wizard). - remote access to any computers connected to the box and running the client (just like GoToMyPC) - hot-swap drives on sleds - awesome(!!!) you can put up to a total of four SATA drives into the box, they do not have to match, it simply aggregates all your disks into a bytepool. To replace a drive, just go to the console, select Remove This Drive, it juggles your storage for a bit and you unplug it. - an eSATA port and four USB2 ports, so you can add way more storage if you want even after you fill the drive sleds. - an IIS server, so if you're inclined, you can customize your server to run your own .NET web applications. - tons of "add-ins" to add new features to your box for free (google for Windows Home Server Add In and you'll see what I mean) Now you're saying hey, I'm a geek, I can build this myself from scratch. So since you get two 500Gb drives with the box (which would cost you around $250 or so), mentally deduct that from the $700 price. A WHS license costs about $150, deduct that too. So now, look around for a barebones NAS box with four hot-swap sleds and see if you can find one for $300 bucks. Good luck.
 
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Like other HP network-based products (e.g., network based printers), this product needs a lot of work. Although I am able to use the backup feature, the product will not give my XP windows system access to the shared folders (says "The network path was not found" -- but my Vista laptop is able to access the shared folders). This severely limits the usefulness of this product. The troubleshooting manual is of no help on this issue.
 
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it is a very good tool and easy to use except for the fact that my internet provider does not support the port forwarding numbers 80-443-4125. Spent much time with Verizon/windows/and HP trying to solve this problem. Finally had to switch from Verizon home to Verizon Business account and that solved the problem. Nowhere or nobody new about this so as a warning please check with your IP first before purchasing.
 
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This system as a file server and automatic backup system is simple to install and very easy to use. It is however not a normal server in that it does not share printers. It does however allow you to access all of your shared files remotely via the internet which I feel is a real plus.
 
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I've been using PCs since they were invented and employed in the industry for 17 years, yet I've never taken backups seriously at home despite having several traumatic data losses. I love the MediaSmart because it only took a few minutes to configure and a few minutes more to load the client on each PC of my home network. Now my data is finally secure and I can get rid of all these external USB hard drives floating around my home office. Gigabit connectivity is nice, but many of the devices on my home network are limited to 100Mbps. Be that as it may, performance is acceptable even at that speed. I'm not convinced that external internet access will be possible for all home users. I have it working but I had to open a port documented in a Microsoft manual I found online. That port was not mentioned in the HP manual. Once you get it working you have a great way to share your photos and other files. And I love the remote desktop access. I was also able to consume multimedia files with my XBOX 360. HP doesn't bring anything new to the table. You could do all this stuff before the MediaSmart came along. But HP makes it relatively easy. I love the design of the MediaSmart. Adding hard drives is painless and requires no tools. I installed two more hard drives and both were online and ready to use in a matter of minutes. Any advanced user should check out the Windows Home Server add-ins available. They take the MediaSmart to the next level. My only real complaint is that it is a little painful to perform file maintenance/organization on the server. You can move files from one folder to another, but the files are actually downloaded to your client PC first before being uploaded again back to the server. This can take hours for large files or large numbers of smaller files. We really need a version of Explorer for the server.
 
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Previously I was struggling with maintaining a central server for all my music, photos, documents and other data files. I had to worry about setting up the shares, defining users and expanding the system when it ran out of space. Backup was a chore also, because it either meant I had to use many tapes for the whole server, or wade through the hard drives to find the most important things. Well, I’ve said goodbye to all of that! HP did a great job at packaging Microsoft Home Server’s operating system into a well designed device. It’s small, easy to use and packed with some key features that are already making my life easier. Installation was a breeze, I basically connected it to my network, turned it on, and ran the client-install on my first computer. It found the server, configured it automatically and I was creating users and shares in minutes. I don’t have to worry about where the shares are created or how I back them up, the MediaSmart will take care of moving the files around between drives and duplicating (optionally) them across drives. So I have my ripped music not-duplicated, but my photos and documents duplicated. It treats all the drives as a single volume and gives me a pretty pie chart of how much overall space I’ve used and for what purpose. I have all my computers (6) setup for automatic backup daily. The backup files are duplicated and MediaSmart comes with a Server and PC restore disk, so in theory I could recover any computer from backup (a theory I haven’t tested, nor do I want to….any more than I want to test my life insurance policy). I was impressed with the remote access and photo sharing web sites. The MediaSmart automatically configured my router and created a domain for me on home server web site, which is great when I have a dynamic IP address at home. Remote access is real powerful and handy and the photo sharing was easy, I love how it also handles forgotten web passwords (apparently a big problem in my family). The main drawback I see is that I couldn’t use it to display photos through my Momento Digital Picture Frame (and other smart media clients). Although it does share media, it implements an older version of the Windows Media Connect (2.0) implementation. The Momento (and others) need version 4.0, which is not supported on the Windows Home Server operating system (although there is a hack available). This seems like a huge oversight on Microsoft’s part but I’m sure they’ll address it in later versions.
 
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I came across the Mediasmart Server while researching solutions to whole-house audio. It isn't the solution -- but I've decided to use it as the foundation upon which I'll build the solution. Aside from serving up files it offers a few other features that elegantly solve other issues in my home. I have 5 pc's networked in my home/home office. I love the daily, automated, centralized backups and that it wakes sleeping/hibernated pc's if necessary to perform the backups. I love the network health status displayed on each and all of the pc's connected. The firewall went down on one of the pc's the grandkids use and I was immediately notified on the pc in my office. It's nice having a centralized gateway to connect to (almost) all of my pc's. One of my PC's runs Windows Vista Home Premium and that flavor of Vista does not support remote desktop connections so I have to use LogMeIn to connect to that PC. That is not a problem with HP's implementation of WHS but I have to say the Microsoft marketing gurus that came up with all the hobbled variations of Vista are doing a great job of selling Macs. I don't use the photo album website creation (I use Picasa to publish albums on the net) -- but I do copy all of my photos to the Photos share for my wife to have access to them for whatever she wants to do. There are numerous free add-ins available for the server. I installed a Tivo Publisher add-in which serves up video, photos and music to my Tivo in the family room (part of the whole-house audio solution.) In the area of add-ins it is kind of like the wild west. From what I have observed these applications are new and not really polished -- "bleeding edge" is the term that comes to mind. Although not advertised, from what I have observed and read, setting up the server to handle print serving/ftp serving/etc is relatively simple. However, as you add more apps to the server the 512 MB of RAM might be a little light. (and of course, I read of a hack to upgrade the memory but in that it would invalidate the warranty I'll wait until I'm out of warranty to go there.) Adding drives is a piece of cake. The unit itself is small, unobtrusive and downright attractive. All in all, for me, this server is a winner.
 
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This is a very nice unit. Works great. I had some problems getting Windows XP and Vista to work with the unit, but if you RIGHT-CLICK on the icon in the bottom right tray and bring up help the answer to my problems where there. The help function walks you through setting up the Windows Firewall and permissions very nicely. I purchased the 1T unit with the plan to update the storage as new and higher storage units become available. The 1T uses two bays or 500G each. Not a problem really when you consider there are still two empty bays and it is easy to purchase 1T drives now days, so I figure in a year of so there will be 2T units to install later. If you think you are purchasing a Network Server for home you are wrong. This is a Media Server for sharing photos, music, movies, and such. It does this very well though.
 
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