HP EX490 1TB Mediasmart Home Server (Black)

by HP

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 3.7 x 5.7 inches ; 11 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 14.6 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B002N8A0A2
• Item model number: FL704AA#ABA
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (107 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #61 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > Servers
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 15, 2009

Product Description

Model: FL704AA#ABA

From the Manufacturer

IDEAL FOR

Backup Keep your files safe. Back up PCs and Macs in your home automatically. Storage Free up space on your computer hard drives and TiVo® box, and centralize your digital life. Save up to 260,000 photos; 227,000 songs; or 600 hours of video with the included 1TB hard drive1. Boost storage capacity as needed with room for three more internal hard drives and up to five external ones. Music Change the music. Stream playlists to any PC & Mac connected to the Internet2, whether you’re at home or away. Photos Share photos easily. Access your photos from computers on your home network and upload them directly from your server to Snapfish.com, Flikr®, Picasa™ Web Albums and Facebook®3. Videos Watch videos on the go. Convert home video files to play on your iPod®, iPhone®, PSP®, Zune and other mobile devices4.

Small, sleek design intended for cool and quiet operation Enlarge

SPECIFICATIONS

Processor 2.20GHz Intel® Celeron® Processor Operating System Powered by Genuine Windows® Home Server software Hard Drive 1TB (7200RPM) SATA, expandable to 17TB5 Memory (RAM) 2GB DDR2 Interfaces 4 USB 2.0 Ports and 1 eSATA Port Network Support Up to Gigabit Ethernet; wired and wireless PCs (via a wireless router)

Simply plug the server into your router and install the software on your computers Enlarge

FEATURES

HP Photo Publisher and Viewer File and Drive Backup for PCs and Macs In-home and Remote Media Streaming Server for iTunes® HP Media Collector for PC and Mac Expandable Drive Bays (up to 17TB total5) HP Video Converter Power-saving Sleep Mode Up to 10 User Accounts Plus Guest Account Additional Software Add-ins (including HP MediaSmart Expander for TiVo®) INCLUDED

Manage your files and server settings easily using the intuitive menu Enlarge

COUNT ON AUTOMATIC BACKUP

Your server automatically runs daily backup to keep new files safe Add a second hard drive (sold separately) for file redundancy with Select Folder Duplication managed by Windows® Home Server Recover from a computer hard drive failure using PC or Mac Restoration features Back up shared folders on your server to an external hard drive (sold separately) and store it off-site for an added level of protection

Learn more about sharing, organizing and protecting your files in the product tour Enlarge

ENJOY ENTERTAINMENT FOR EVERYONE

New HP MediaSmart Expander for TiVo: Free up space on your TiVo box, plus watch recorded content on any computer in your home by storing shows on your HP MediaSmart Server6 The HP Video Converter automatically formats your videos for Xbox 360, PS3, PlayStation Portable, iPod, iPhone, Zune and more4 Stream music, photos and videos, so friends and family can listen to your favorite song, see your vacation photos and watch your home videos from their own computers—anywhere in the world The HP MediaSmart Server iPhone app also lets you stream files to your iPod touch or iPhone2 Access music playlists from multiple PCs in your home

HP MediaSmart Server makes it easy to back up your Mac and share your iTunes and other media to your iPhone and iPod Touch Enlarge

KEEP EVERYTHING IN ONE PLACE

The HP Media Collector automatically collects and organizes media files, including iPhoto®, iTunes® and iMovie® libraries The HP Photo Viewer helps you create photo albums to share with friends and family The HP MediaSmart Server is ready to grow with your needs: Expand your server’s storage capacity by adding optional hard drives (sold separately) in the three empty drive bays or with the external ports

Boost storage capacity to 17TB total using optional hard drives Enlarge

MORE INFORMATION

Datasheet (PDF)

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(1) Storage specifications are based on available capacity following installation. Photo capacity based on average compressed .jpg size of 3.5MB/image. Music capacity based on 4 minutes per song and 128Kbps AAC encoding. Video capacity based on each hour of video recording at 1.42GB for Standard NTSC format in "fair" mode and at 3.60GB for Standard NTSC format in "best" mode.
(2) Requires wired connection to a router; remote features require a broadband Internet connection.
(3) Services are subject to change without notice and some services may not be available at time of product purchase. The available service providers may vary in your country/region.
(4) Copy-protected files may not stream properly. Streaming to a TV requires a digital media receiver (UPnP) or a gaming console like the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.
(5) Maximum storage capacity—Only limited by the number of internal hard drive bays (4), USB ports (4) and eSATA port (1).
(6) The free HP MediaSmart Expander for TiVo is a free add-in application and requires TiVo Series2^™, Series3^™, TiVo Premiere or TiVo Premiere XL products. To share TiVo shows on other devices across your home network, free TiVo desktop software available for download on TiVo.com is also required. TiVo, the TiVo logo, Series2 and Series3 are trademarks or registered trademarks of TiVo Inc. or its subsidiaries worldwide.

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Product Description

The HP EX490 Media Smart Server is the all-in-one solution to manage your media: a home server that can automatically backup and protect your digital memories, centralize your media and content for sharing with family and friends, and enable you to enjoy your digital media while at home or away. Network-based backup of PCs using Windows Home Server as well as Macs using Apple’s Time Machine. Media streaming of photos, music and videos to PCs, the entertainment center and remote devices including the iPhone. What's in the box: HP EX490 (1TB plus 3 unused expansion bays) MediaSmart Server, Power cord, Ethernet cable, Software installation disc , PC restore disc, Server recovery disc and Setup Poster and HP support guides. One year limited warranty and our dedicated software technical support available from date of purchase both online and by phone.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

97 of 103 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful and solid quality - for the committed user but not for picky people ~ Rev. July 2010, November 23, 2009

By 

Stanltaaf "No such thing" (Free Lunch, Luna UAE) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HP EX495 1.5 TB MediaSmart Home Server (Black) (Personal Computers)

I'm technically inclined, but not an engineer. I have some experience with this topic... I first built my own server with spare parts and run it at my home. I am reviewing this because I bought it for my parents and installed it.

Preface - as of 2010, I've seen a lot of heartache about Mac Compatibility. Please, do some research before purchasing this product for a Mac to see if this will fit your needs. There is a TON of outside forum support about this. Otherwise my original review still stands:

Part 1: The software, and what HP brings to the party:

Windows Home Server is actually a program (based on Windows Server 2003 with enhancements, optimized and pre-configured), and is easy to use in a home. And it is good, all by itself. HP's contributions by adding on its own 'add-ins' make the software better.

As a sample of what this means for you, an example: If you are recording tv shows on in Windows 7 media center you can offload your shows here, and still stream them giving you instant access anytime over your home network from a windows 7 PC. The new update to the software also makes it so you can set windows 7 up to offload your recordings from your Windows 7 pc to the server automatically so you don't tie up your computer's storage space. If you want to take a look at what that kind of pc setup might look like, just search listmania for "Win 7 HTPC build"; I'm the first search hit.

So what does HP bring to this? If you have media files that you want to convert for viewing on a mobile device, HP bundled an add-in transcoding software on this so you can offload that work to server's CPU and not tie up your computer while you'd rather be surfing or playing games or whatever else you do to make things better (Note: HP's transcoding will NOT remove DRM). There are a lot more add-ins they bundle with this, but it's exhaustive and there isn't the space.

Bottom line, there are plenty of 'WHS' solutions. But my take is that HP has put a lot behind making this a great software bundle, and I have to say I'm impressed with the bonus they bring. Emphasis on the word Bonus, because they are 'nice to have-s' not designed for the people who consider them 'must-have-s'. The core functionality of streaming video, storing shares and back-up is what this is designed for.


Part deux: What's so great about the hardware.

The pictures make it look big. But it is small - about the size of a small bread box turned on end. I was surprised when I unboxed it. It's also easy to add hard drives. It comes with one, but you'll get hooked and want to add one. Just take out a tray, pop in a recent generation "SATA II" drive and replace the tray in the server and it self configures. I recommend buying one straight away anyway because then you can turn on 'file duplication'. That means the server at your specific direction will keep duplicate copies of folders you select on two separate hard drives in the server as insurance against mechanical failure.

You can also back up the system drive, which I'm learning how to do, and you need an external USB drive to do that.

Energy-wise It pulls about 4 to 6 watts under normal operation. Yet another reason to buy this if you are power conscious. Don't let that figure fool you. There's plenty of hardware oomph for most people's needs.

Part Three - Documentation.

There is a lot of documentation! Just not in the box that comes with the server. WHS started out of a user community/company initiative that blossomed into a server software product that now you are seeing hardware being made for. So, if you aren't sure if this is for you - please take a look online about what other uses this is for and what alternatives are out there.

Summary:

Good build, solid software, continuous integration to Windows backed by a very committed enthusiast community that makes it so you don't have to think 'what if my hard drive crashes/computer shorts out/child vandalizes my computer?

It's automated and low/no maintenance. For a commited user: a 'no-brainer'. For someone who needs to purchase tech support from a computer vendor, I suggest that a home server is not likely a good fit for you. You are probably better off with an online backup service for your needs.

I like this one because it has extra drive bays. There are configurations that just use one hard drive, but I would pass on that.

If you are buying an add on drive, a Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB Bulk/OEM Hard Drive 3.5 Inch, 32 MB Cache, 7200 RPM SATA II WD1001FALS should work just fine.


Update - 7/9/10 WHS (the program, not the HP MediaSmart server) does random things when stuff starts failing, meaning if you ever get random restarts, can't find drives or things like that, it's not the software it's just not that robust to tell you when something is broken. On my HOMEMADE server, I had a stick of ram go bad and it gave me random errors until I figured it out. (But that's no different than any standard computer, just thought it was good to update about how its going)

Also, MSFT is working on a new version of WHS software called "Vail" that is in beta right now. It should handle errors like dying hard drives a bit more cleanly than what some folks are experiencing now...


For those of you who are adventurous, I've put a listmania list together for you on how to build your own. http://www.amazon.com/lm/R1NJKRJG6H78L6/ref=cm_lm_pthnk_view?ie=UTF8&lm_bb=

100 of 109 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not easily impressed... but I am now, October 5, 2009

By 

Whaledad (Texas, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HP EX495 1.5 TB MediaSmart Home Server (Black) (Personal Computers)

Working in the computer industry for over 25 years, I'm not easily impressed. Two quad-core processor, 8 GB of RAM and 2.5 TB of storage in a home pc... nice, but just "more of the same".
Most of the computer innovation of the last couple of years has been "more, faster and bigger", but nothing revolutionary.
However, the new MediaSmart EX495 is truly amazing: the speed, the capacity, but more importantly: the ease-of-install, and ease-of-use that DON'T "handycap" the "power user", are fabulous.
I had the server up and running in a few minutes. It's now supporting 6 users, 1 MediaSmart Connect x280n (why did they stop making that!?), and 1 Roku M500. I added a second 1.5-TB hard drive and have already filled almost half of the total capacity (25,000 songs, 28,000 pictures, 600 videos, and loads of other stuff). This includes doubling almost every directory (I like this feature over Raid 1 as it provides much more flexibility), and backups of all PCs. The most impressive was how it enables external (secure) access by directly interacting with the router to open/forward the right ports. And it was immediately successful.
Still to do: connect a USB cable to my UPS and try to set up graceful shut down.

55 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Idiot proof...even for an idiot like me, October 3, 2009

By 

CaliDuckPhan "Sam" (SF Bay Area) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: HP EX495 1.5 TB MediaSmart Home Server (Black) (Personal Computers)

This little guy got delivered by Amazon a few days before it's original release. I am not much of a directions guy, but was extremely pleased with how easy this was to set up and how intuitive it was when it came to setting it up. I've got 1 workstation, 2 netbooks, and 2 laptops that backup wirelessly to this guy. If they are already on the same wireless network, it's simply a matter of clicking the 'add computer' button. There's no need to fuss with any of the backup settings unless you are particular, as it will do the work automatically for you. You can then either access your files via the console or remotely at your convenience.

I can't stress enough how nice and convenient it is to be able to centrally access all my files without having to shuffle files back and forth between the local hard drives and having piece of mind knowing it's being backed up automatically. I previously did this with Time Capsule which while it worked at times, was tempermental and slow. I'm not sure how well this will work on Mac, but I am running various flavors of XP and Vista in 32bit and 64bit configs.

I even decided to add another storage drive (Seagate Barracude 1.5tb 7200rpm)for redundancy. Adding storage was a simple as pulling out an open drive bay, popping in the new drive, then going into the management console to click through the add storage wizard which took less than a minute. Now I've got 2.6tb's of storage, more than I'll probably ever need and 2 open bays to expand down the road.

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