Home Media Servers

What is the NAS protocol? HTTP or something?

 

Doh. I meant NFS.

 

GOOD GRIEF!! I can understand the last sentence...that's it!! Hahahaha

 

Would you mind sharing where you bought it and how much you paid?

Have been looking to build a home media server and based on 2 recommendations here ... I was looking over in Amazon and the reviews http://www.amazon.com/EX490-Mediasmart-Home-Server-Black/product-reviews/B002N8A0A2/ref=cm_cr_dp_hist_1?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addOneStar are 50-50. Would be very interested to read your follow-up.

The main concern I have upon reading the reviews is the power supplies going bust...did you consider this before buying? Just curious as to what were the factors you considered before buying EX490? Thanks in advance.

 

Cool! Yeah I love mine.... I didn't realize how small it was until I unboxed it -- pretty darn compact. I'm hoping we'll be able to upgrade to the new WHS OS when it comes out later this year -- it's in beta now... 64bit only, based on win2008 server... There are a lot of neat add-ins too.

 

yikes, I just read those reviews on amazon... I hope HP does make spare parts available, or maybe there are 3rd party ones out there.... I haven't had any problems with mine yet... I just upgraded to the version 3 of the software which fixes some minor bugs/etc. I mainly use mine for backup up the workstations and storing media files and accessing them over CIFS/windows shares to my HTPC and also a WDTV Live. I haven't used it much with uPNP streaming and stuff. The nice thing is that you can install pretty much any media streamer you want if you don't like Twonky or whatever HP provides.

 

Mr.Linux and boomer ... thanks for your feedback. I am going to see if the price drops under $400.

Mr.Linux -- Hopefully the model #. is a typo and you are referring to EX490 and not LX490 as mentioned?

 

The WOL features of WHS are nice too, wake pc up for backup, then sleep it, etc...

After I updated the software to HP 3.0 upgrade (which you need to reset the server to do) I haven't had the time to reinstall addins, but I had one called P80 to give SMART status of the drives and some other stuff.

Also, i like the fact that I can RDP into the server to install custom software if I want, etc.

Eventually I'd like to have some of my home automation stuff on there.... I just never get around to doing it 8)

 

And if I understand the expansion options, you can have a max of 4 physical drives installed in the unit total? So, the 1.0 TB, plus 3 drives (at 2.0 TB each) is a max of around 7 TB of storage?

Can you use external drives connected through a USB connection(s) to add more?

I am playing around with digitizing my massive collection of DVD movies .... and my music so I have a central source. And are you guys using Gigabit Ethernet or N or what?

I will need to upgrade my network either way... I am still using an old DLink 10/100 Wireless G setup. I was successful for the past few years to use a DLink home media server and TVersity server software to watch Video, TV from around the World... wireless on my bigscreen, but that is just not as good a quality as I would like.

 

So Eric... I am thinking that you might be convinced (bribed) with some cool suds to help design my Network upgrade.... I am in serious need of some planning before I get too far in my big upgrade, basement build out, home theater etc.

I have some Network/Home media diagrams I have been working on in Visio, perhaps with Boomer or others interested, we could come up with an excuse to meet and design a really great Network etc. for my next project!!

 

mmm beer, sounds good!

I would love to build my next house and run all of the wiring/conduit myself and trick it out =) I wish I had an unfinished basement to do a man cave... maybe next house =)

BTW, Eric -- one drawback to our WHS box (ex485/490) is that HP didn't enable the port multiplier for the eSATA *grumble*... the earlier ex470 could do it -- go figure. I current have 750GB system drive, 3x1TB, external 2TB eSATA -- I'm not really in the need of any more space, but if I wanted to expand, I'd rather upgrade the internal 1TBs to 2TB to keep things internal and clean and using less watts.. Then you can hang normal USB drives off of it to do backups of the server if you want... .I think Vail will have a better backup mechanism for the server itself.

I've yet to have a drive fail, but kinda want one to so I can test the rebuild of any redundant data I might have =)

One of the next things I want to do I set up some sort of rsync/unison/something to backup my colo linux server to home just in case anything happens.... and vice versa so I can have decent off-site backups.

 

err, correction on the ex490 -- it does have eSata multiplier support... ex485/487 don't .. =) You can load that bad boy up with 10 drives or something 8)

 

Newegg.com has EX490 currently on sale for $365 (with $75 off promo code - EMCYWZP38) thru Sunday 12 AM PST ... just placed an order for one...!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16859105562

 

looks like they might be clearning em out for the upcoming Vail release... I hope someone will figure out how to upgrade the older HPs to Vail as I doubt they will make it easy unfortunately

 

Does anybody have FiOS-TV working with Media Center PC's with cablecard? If so, how is it connected (TV card, coax or wi-fi)?