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) | Great Product and OS

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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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Everyone with more than 1 Computer Should Have One

Not sure what to do with this thing?

Backup all the computers in your house each night without lifting a finger.

Being a backup freak, that's reason number one to get this HP Home Server. I can't tell you how many times I've had to help people recover lost data or give them the bad news that years of photos were lost because they never backed them up. Backups only work if you do them. And this thing does them for you automatically. Every computer on the network (even Media Centers) get backed-up every night without fail.

Like another reviewer mentioned, either purchase the EX475 that comes with 2 drives or the EX470 - and add a drive - to make sure the HP Server can evenly distribute the data across multiple drives. It's not a RAID configuration, but a Window Clustering system that does the same thing to protect data so even if 1 drive fails, the data is duplicated across remaining drives.

Over the years, the computers in our house have collected different sets of photos from different cameras in a way that I'll never be able to reconcile. With the HP Server, it doesn't matter anymore since every computer is backed up each night - and only the changed and added files are backed up after the first, massive backup.

What else?

Remotely access anything on the server (your backed-up photos, videos, documents - everything) or your home computers from any web browser in the world. It's cool to download a full-length, hour-long family video directly to a family member's computer in another state with nothing more than a browser.

Upload photos to the server so family and friends can access them from your Home Server web site. This is much better than sending massive emails to friends or having to shrink down photos so they don't bounce back. They can see all of them and download full-resolution versions if they want. The thumbnail view needs to be improved, but it's a minor flaw. If you want, the server will even send emails to family and friends of your choosing when you upload new photos. I even have photographer friends who use their Home Server to upload their photos from the road to ensure they don't get lost or erased before they get home.

Access the desktop of any computer in your house from a web browser. Sure, with a Windows computer with Remote Desktop installed, you can do this too (if you've configured your router the way it requires). This is better. Without installing any software, you can access any desktop in your home through the server.

Media Sharing. Share your photos, videos and music to any other computer in the house. Using the free add-in software, you can stream it to Media Players hooked up to your TV too. Unleash your computer-bound photos to the TV room where more people can enjoy them. And listen to your MP3s on a real stereo.

Also - if you run low on server space, just drop in another drive. It's quick and easy to do. You don't even have to open the case to do it!

This is an attractive, practically silent, useful addition to your home you should honestly consider. It's even smaller than it looks in pictures, so if size is a concern, check out the dimensions or other pictures of it on the web. I love this thing!

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Great Product and OS

I canceled my Amazon order and got the EX475 directly from HP. Ground shipping was free, however, I had it in two days! I've been involved with computers both at home and at work for more years that I care to think about and have to say that the installation was without a doubt one of the easiest things I've ever done. The most difficult part was plugging it in. I will say that before I received it, I read the book "Windows Home Server for Dummies" which was great and provided a lot of information that was useful during setup and use. I was pleasantly surprised when the remote access worked the first time, particularly since I have an older router that I had to configure manually. Overall, I'm very satisfied with both the EX475 product and the Windows Home Server operating system. It has certainly lived up to all of my expectations.

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HP Server excceded my expectations!

I bought the EX475 with dual 500GB hard drives. I didn't need any more memory as it already quadrupled my HD requirements, but I have expansion of two more HD slots in the future. Hard drives are coming down in price, so 1 TB HDs will be cheaper in several years if I need it. I use the server to back up my two computers once a week, but can be done nightly. I also use it to share with other users on the Internet, such as pictures, videos, and music.

That's about a fourth of what this amazing small sized product can do. I plan on adding wireless capabilites to my big screen TV so the server can entertain us when broadcast TV can't. And as other users have said, it's too nice to hide, unless you're worried about security. I highly recommend it if you need back-up memory storage, media server, networking, HD expansion, USB and Ethernet ports, ten user accounts, all password protected, and user friendly. HP did a nice job for a new product.

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Good overall, but some rough edges

The MediaSmart server is a very nice product for any multiple computer home. It offers a luxurious amount of storage space for all of your huge media files, and makes sharing and backup for all computers on the network downright simple. It is VERY easily upgraded - you don't even need any tools to add a new hard drive, just snap it into the tray, slide the tray in, and it only takes a couple of clicks to add the drive. The four trays will offer years of upgrading.

Note that, despite the high points of the product, there are some rough spots. First, it is significantly short of memory. Windows Home Server, the MediaSmart's operating system, is a very trimmed down version of Windows Server to fit into 512mb... but HP added a number of features, bloating it back up to about 700mb. As a result, the server, in its default configuration, will tend to repeatedly read the virtual memory, SIGNIFICANTLY slowing down the server. It's best to upgrade the server from 512mb to a far more comfortable 2gb... but note, this requires practically dismantling it, voiding the warranty.

The other issue is one not of the MediaSmart server itself, but of the Windows Home Server operating system. As of the time of this review, it has an extremely critical bug that causes file corruption. There are specific conditions that prompt this, but it's a relatively common condition - Editing a file that's in a shared directory, on a MediaSmart server with multiple hard drives (which the EX475 comes with by default). The bug is slated to be fixed, but until Microsoft releases the patch to correct them, it will limit much of the utility of the server. Until the patch is released, the bug can be worked around by copying the file to a local computer to edit it, then copying it back, but it does, unfortunately, mean that it isn't possible to run BitTorrent on the server itself until the bug is fixed.

Overall, it's a nice little server if you need some extra space to share files between computers, and you'd like something you can either tuck back into a closet and never worry about or display nicely on a bookshelf. I would primarily recommend it to those who are not afraid to pop it open due to the memory issue, however - the lack of memory is a huge stumbling block to the use of the device if it's unupgraded. The WHS issue will be corrected, hopefully soon, and I purchased the server despite already knowing of the issue since I knew I could work around it until it was fixed.

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

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