HP EX475 MediaSmart Home Server (AMD Live, Windows Home Server, 1 TB Hard Drive)

HP EX475 MediaSmart Home Server (AMD Live, Windows Home Server, 1 TB Hard Drive) | Near Flawless

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HP EX475 MediaSmar...

	HP EX475 MediaSmart Home Server (AMD Live, Windows Home Server, 1 TB Hard Drive) Hewlett Packard Hewlett Packard average customer review:based on 28 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Great Product Once You Get Passed All the FUD

Last year my wife's computer died. Of course she hadn't backed up her computer in months (or was it years) even though she had a USB Drive with a semi-automated (One Touch) backup system. Backing up her computer should have been trivial, but it required a manual step, which she never remembered to do. She lost irreplaceable data and pictures.

This isn't the first time we've lived through this scenario. In her frustration, she asked me to solve this problem once and for all. I knew that there were expensive commercial systems to automate backups (we use them at work). After looking around for a while, I considered piecing together a system and buying commercial software. Then I ran across the Windows Home Server from HP. The system was less expensive than what I was considering building and it was turn-key. It seemed like a slam-dunk.

I bought the HP WHS system in December. It was trivial to hook up. I had the computers in our house automatically backing up in just an hour or so. It also gives me a status of the server and of the computers that have been configured for backup. If it detects something amiss, it lets me know about it. That's a big win.

There are several other cool features that I consider a bonus:
1. PC software for backup and recovery is on the server file system. I can easily install it as I need it without hunting for CD's.
2. I can access the server remotely (via the internet) to access files and to remotely log into my home systems. This is very nice feature.
3. The HP system comes with extra drive bays. If I need more storage I just buy a drive and slam it in, the server takes care of the rest.
4. The unit is tiny and quiet. This makes it much easier to find a place to put it.

Not long after I got the server I heard about the infamous KB946676 "Data Corruption" bug. At first I was very concerned - after all I was putting my trust in its ability to safely backup my computers. But after looking into it further, it turns out I have a 0% chance of running into this problem (which is true for most people). To see for yourself read the following article [...]. In my case, I normally use the system for backups so this problem is not going to affect my typical usage.

I believe that you can safely ignore much of the negative comments based on KB946676. The negative bias based on KB946676 is mostly a knee-jerk reaction. Having said that, you should probably avoid editing files on the server while it is heavily loaded (which is something I never do). It is my understanding that this is the only time this bug can occur.

The bottom line is that I would heartily recommend this system to any family with multiple computers.

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Near Flawless

I've had it running for about 3 months now. As always, I had to have one just as soon as it was released for sale. (An OEM WHS, that is.)

It installed in about 20 minutes on my first computer and less than that on my other computers. I elected to buy a new "N" wifi router that had gigabyte ethernet as both my desktop computer and the WHS supported it. Glad I did. 50 or 100 Meg file transfer almost instantly.

The Media server has been as reliable as an anvil. It just sits there and works.

The much over-discussed "data coruption bug" is supposed to be fixed by Microsoft in June. Meantime, the workaround is a no brainer. Just drag the file you want from the server to your computer, open it and do what you want and when you're done, drag it back to the WHS. The fix, I hear, will allow you just to open the data on the server. Minor and temporary inconvenience.

Much more serious was changing the the dumb welcome screen picture to one of my own. :-)

The webshare photo album is great and really easy to use. Remote access using the HP offered dynamic IP access site works flawlessly. I have my work files available wherever I need them.

Really a great, great product that does exactly what it's supposed to do.

Joe

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Does everything I want it to do

I was looking for a way to reliably back up several home computers. I don't really need (or want) remote access. I have on my "to do" list consolidating iTunes libraries into one location, but that isn't a priority, so I haven't gotten that done yet. By default, it sets up some "shared" folders on the network which could be useful. We "share" the family calendars, but don't bother with most other stuff.

Bottom line ... it just works!

Plugged it in, and after figuring out that I had a dead port on my hub, it was up. I installed the software on the first computer, answered some pretty trivial configuration questions, and forced a backup. About 3 hours later, it was done. I cycled through the other computers in the house and they backed up just fine. It automatically backs up everything between midnight and six am (the default -- trivial to change), so I don't care how long that takes, but looking at the logs, it seems to be about 15 minutes or so. If it goes for five days without a backup, it nags.

I created a couple of test files, let them backup, then deleted them to test recovery. Recovery was a snap. I'm not sure how easy it would be to find a file that disappeared "sometime last month", but that's always a problem.

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Achieves Most of My Objectives

This product achieves most of my objectives for a home server. My priority was to back up all my data from several computers and external drives and to be able to access that data remotely via the internet. The internet server feature was key for me. I didn't need just another external hard drive. I found it a little confusing to set up but telephone tech support finally got me going. I also think that the ability to download add-ins to the server will be useful, althought I haven't yet tried that. I hope some of the add-ins that are available or will be available soon will relieve some of my disappointment with the limited user controls and limited user interface to the operations of the server.

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reviews: 1, page 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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