HP MediaSmart Server

For many tech savvy individuals to create a file server with nothing more than an old computer and the right operating systems. For us less educated in the way of file servers, there is the HP MediaSmart Server. Since I myself am one those creative professionals who doesn’t know much in that area, I decided to look into the HP MediaSmart Server.

I wanted something that was easy to use, didn’t cost too much, and featured automatic backup. The HP MediaSmart Server seem to fit all of thee above.

I want to point out that this IS NOT a paid or sponsored post. This is a product I looked into on my own and thought some others in this industry might be interested in.

Basically, the HP MediaSmart Server is a dummy friendly file server for the everyday person. It is designed to be a simple media server that can be setup on your home network, giving you a file server that can be accessed from anywhere. Because I travel a good bit, its nice to know I can have a central area to access all my home files.

I could use some sort of auto FTP program, but the HP MediaSmart Server just seems a lot easier and more affordable. Many of those online backup programs charge more the more you upload. But with the HP MediaSmart Server, you can get 500GB right out of the box for just $500. You also have plenty of room to add or upgrade to more hard drives as you see fit.

A few of the servers features:

  • Intel Celeron 2.0GHz 64-bit Processor
  • Network-Based Backup of Macs Using Apple¿s Time Machine
  • Photo/Video Sharing and Remote Access to Digital Media and Files on a Variety of Devices
  • Single SATA 7200 RPM 750GB Drives
  • Automatic Digital Content Organization Across All PCs

Being that my fiance is less technically inclined than I, I also like the usability the HP MediaSmart Server offers. It is made to be easy enough for anyone with basic computer skills to figure out.

What are your thoughts on the HP MediaSmart Server? For $500 and 500GB, it doesn’t seem like a bad idea to me. What are your thoughts?

Official Website


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Comments

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  • Marko says:
    February 27, 2009 at 4:30 pm

    Wow think this is good. I run HP too but this little beast hear is very good. Basically every HP product is a quality product, from my experience of course.

  • Matt says:
    February 28, 2009 at 4:33 am

    I was excited for this to come out, and actually got one. After using it for the last week, I would give it a good 3.9/5.0 (but would consider 4.5 once I get it working 100% with my mac).

    For the most part, after you get it working right, it’s a great product. I’ve had some issue’s running it on my mac with time machine. After the intial setup, it would be connected fine and backup nicely, BUT when I turned it off for the night, and powered it up the next morning, It couldn’t mount the server at all, and I had no idea why. I tried what I could but had no suck luck. So I decided to re-install the software for the server again, and after the installation, again it worked fine.

    I’ve still been having some connectivity problems when using my mac, but on my windows machiene I haven’t had a problem with it.

    Also note, that if planning to purchase this, then you will need a windows machine for the initial setup, and monitoring of the server. They haven’t built that functionality for use on the mac yet.

  • Geert says:
    February 28, 2009 at 9:14 am

    Would you be able to make it run an Apache webserver as well? Can’t find that information at first sight. Anyway, if so, then it would be about exactly what I need.

  • Christina Warren says:
    March 4, 2009 at 5:50 pm

    Geert,
    Eh, not really. You could configure it to be a server on your intranet (local network), but it can’t host outside content. That said, this is really designed as a NAS system that can share your media across devices. It has Apache (actually, it might be IIS), for remote access across machines, but as for using it as a dev server — you’d need to look at adding custom packages to it which may or may not conflict with the WHS stuff. This is designed to be a really easy backup/media storage solution — not a true web server. If you want that sort of stuff, you should look at maybe putting together your own box.

    These devices aren’t bad — but one note, unless you have a Windows machine, you can’t interface it with a Mac. That’s really important to know.

    My fiance and I looked at buying one of these but ended up building our own box and have it running freeNAS (www.freenas.org), which works with Windows, linux and Mac OS X perfectly (it’s based in BSD so it works really well with OS X). That might be too complex for you to consider building a machine, but I would recommend freeNAS as a great alternative to WHS and something like Ubuntu Server. We’ve got our music collection available to all our computers using iTunes (it has a built-in iTunes streaming server) and can monitor all our stuff online.

    Small Network Builder said these things are still really slow in comparison to the other stuff out there, but that they aren’t a bad value. I’d probably be more inclined to look at the Netgear or D-Link NAS boxes though.