- Sleek, slim home server with 640 GB of storage for simple backups and media streaming in your home over over the Internet
- Remotely streams photos and music to any Internet-connected PC or Mac; upload photos to Flickr, Facebook and more
- Network-based backup of Windows PCs and Macs using Apple’s Time Machine
- Expandable via four USB 2.0 ports for connecting to external USB hard drives
- Processor: Intel 1.6 GHZ Atom Processor 230
Product DescriptionBuilt to Serve Your Digital Life! The HP MediaSmart Server LX195 is a home server that can automatically backup and protect your digital memories, centralize your media and content for sharing with friends and family, and enable you to delight in your digital media while at home or away. Powered by Microsoft Windows Home Server software and Intel’s Atom 1. 6 GHZ Processor 230. Network-based backup of PCs using Windows Home Server and Macs using Apple¿s Time machine. Cent. . . More >>
HP LX195 MediaSmart Home Server
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I bought 2 HP Media Vaults – MV2020 for storage capacity and print server capabilities. One held all my files from the past 20 years, including priceless family photos, and the other was purely backup. Both have failed catastrophically within several days of each other!! Discs spinning loudly as though out of control, unable to shutdown, and burning smell. HP customer service has been absolutely useless – website shows warranty expiring nearly a year before I bought the units! After wasting time on the phone, I was told they would provide warranty replacement once I prove my buy date (from Amazon), BUT I’m out of luck on all my data! Now trying recovery methods that will cost many times more than the HP units did in the first place!! DO NOT use HP Media servers even if obtained for free – not worth it! I thought I could trust the brand name, but found out HP is as worthless as their products.
Rating: 1 / 5
The best part of this device isn’t the copious storage, or the slick user interface, or the automatic backup feature. No, the HP server shines in its ability to connect to literally every networked device in your house. This means that all our computers see it, our Wii sees it, and most importantly, our PS3 sees it and can access all the movies, photos, and music stored there. In effect this system means you can catalog ALL your movies and access them through the PS3. The only downside appears to be that, since it runs through your router, the streaming rate is limited to the *upload* speed of your router. it might be possible to hook an additional router up to improve bandwidth, but I haven’t tried it. So the limitation on streaming is, for us, about 2MB/s (1-1. 5 MB/s in practical use). Most MPEG-encoded movies (AVIs) will stream fine with those bitrates, but MP4s and MOVs (which are larger and need more throughput) are choppy and essentially unwatchable via streaming. MP3 music files transmit with no problem. So if you’re thinking about getting this for digital streaming, make sure your movies are in an AVI format or that the bitrate is low enough so your router can keep up.
Rating: 4 / 5
Sad to say, I could not get this latest rendition from Hp to function properly. I spent a total of seven hours with HP’s techs (both of whom knew their stuff–free call, English speaking Canadians), but we could not get it to perform. The server (slick, small, and an impressive design)simply would not connect with my primary client(PC). Nor could I get it to enter recovery mode. I did buy (from Amazon) the Windows Home Server software by Microsoft, and I was able to set up my own server(not without several challenges!). To use Microsoft’s jargon, if you don’t do it right, the software will break (and I can bear witness to this indisputable fact). The faint of heart should not try this, but perhaps buy one of the other HP Home Servers, which are a bit more expensive but have at least two internal HDDs. And don’t buy any of the above, if you intend to use the server as a PC as well. Remember, a client (PC) is a client, and a Server is a Server!HP LX195 MediaSmart Home Server
Rating: 1 / 5
The focus of this review is going to be primarily focused on the user friendlness and technical aspects of this product other than the actual functions itself. It you want to know what a home media server does, Amazon provides a fabulous description of its many exciting features. Essentially, but, these Media Servers are miracle products that transform the digital junkie into a sorcerer of digital magic. This baby streams your files to any computer in your home and also makes them accessible anywhere with internet thanks to web servers. Living in the digital age has never been more fun. If you have tons of pictures, videos, music, or any computer file you consistently like to share with your family and friends then you certainly NEED one of these Media Servers – the question is, is this the right one?
After a month of tinkering, experimenting, playing around, and pressing buttons here is my list of Pros and Cons that I’ve run into so far:
PRO:
+ Simple Setup
– Installing hardware has never been my forte, but setting this up was a breeze. The only hiccup I had was my own fault for thinking I could get it to completely function without plugging it into a Router. I should have followed directions better. You HAVE to have a router for this to work. And not just any either, it needs to be specifically designed for network usage. I bought the Belkin Wireless N+ 802. 11n Router (Black) and it worked fantastic.
+ Assigning/Restricting User Access
– When making up user names and passwords for my family to have remote access to the files I was overjoyed to learn that I could limit what files and folders different users had access to. Not only did this make me feel like an all-power media master, but of course there were some files I didn’t want my grandma to have access to.
+ Online Access
– This is perhaps the best feature. While my family owns 3 computers in the same house, most of the people I wanted to share my files with didn’t live with me. Setting up and accessing the files online was extremely simple. The server has a clean interface that lets users access and download the files from the folders in which they have access. It’s very simple to find the files you’re looking for because it doesn’t waste time looking fancy. This is also incredible because I can access word documents from work or anywhere else where I might need some of my home files.
+ What It Does
– Okay I admit I’d never heard of a Media Server until I got this but now I don’t know how I ever survived without it. No more USB sticks, no more emailing myself files. I can keep it all on my server and access it from Anywhere. Not to mention with a family that has many computers in the home already it’s a digital dream come right being able to listen to my music anywhere.
CONS:
- Logging In & Out
– This might seem a bit picky but because I loved setting up various access abilities for different users it kind of became a problem when different members of the family wanted to log into the main server. I couldn’t find a “log out” or “switch user” option anywhere and found that the only way to log out was to restart the computer.
- Memory
– It seems like a just a year ago that 650 GB was such a ridiculously large amount of memory it wouldn’t be possible to fill it up. Now, but, as we store our videos and everything imaginable in a digital file, it makes me a small nervous that the memory could and would be soon used up on this guy. It does have the ability to add additional memory and external hard drives, but if you don’t want to have electronics connected into electronics connected into electronics it’d be nice to have more memory. Especialy since it uses a lot to backup my entire computer every day.
- Questionable Functions
– While my Media Server continuously reminds me it has successfully backed itself up I don’t necessarily trust it. Maybe I’m just paranoid but I wouldn’t completely place all my faith in this guy to keep your files safe. I don’t trust it as much as my regular external hard drive either, so I made copies of all my files before putting them on the server. It makes me feel better, although I have no particular reason to not trust it except that it will occasionally inform me that the backup procedure failed and that it would try again later.
OVERALL OPINION:
I am in LIKE with this Media Server!! It’s like having a digital juke box, photo album, and video screen that you can use anytime, anywhere. Is THIS the media server you need? Well. . . that depends. It’s at a fantastic price but I reckon the memory will eventually become a problem, especially if you choose to use it as a sole hard drive. Personally I reckon it would be a excellent thought to look into the Linksys by Cisco 1 TB Media Hub with LCD as it has a Terabyte of memory and a more fascinating (although perhaps more complicated) interface. I would NOT recommend HP EX485 MediaSmart Home Server or HP EX487 MediaSmart Home Server because the upgrades from this one hardly look worth the price jump. If memory isn’t a problem, but, I couldn’t find anything that looked better than this on Amazon.
Hope my review helps! Pleased Shopping!
Rating: 4 / 5
^^ ** Key Point: While this machine is very nice and quick with the Atom Processor and Windows Home Server – it lacks redundancy. This is a huge problem if you want to make sure you never lose your pictures or home movies of the kids . . . . you can add an external drive – but at that point it costs as much as a server with redundancy . . .
The HP MediaSmart Server is a bit of a weird niche product. If you are looking for a NAS with lots of storage and redundant backups – then this is not your device. If you are a non-techie who doesn’t really want to mess with anything and just have a device that uploads your kids pictures so the grandparents can see, then this might be for you. But most of you – aren’t shopping for a Windows Home server. So . . . hence a dilemma.
As far as performance and the raw ability, this small box is well made and is very quick. It is the “undisputed performance leader” as far as loading files to and from this machine. It also sports the underrated Windows Home server OS. This is not a Linux box and works well as a backup solution for Windows and Macs (with time machine support).
I am personally using this as a media server for my TiVo. I use my TiVo HD to play all my media and this HP sits ready to go at a moments notice to play Horton hears a who or the Incredibles for my kids.
The problem lies in this: if you want a machine to store your files and media, and also harness the power of Windows Home Server, there are better options that also include redundancy. This small box only has 1 hard drive = no redundancy.
If you are thinking about building one: (with a much higher capacity and feature set , with realatively green performance)
This machine is excellent at what it does: find your pictures and other media files, backup a computer or two (more than that starts to eat away at your base 640gb), and serve up some movies / music to your iTunes , and transferring pictures to flikr or picasa. It just seems to be too small for too much money and it doesn’t do what you really need it to do – which is to have some redundancy. The only way to get that redundancy is to plug in additional external hard drives – which really puts this machine out of the picture given the alternatives.
If you are going to spend some money on a NAS/Media box – spend it on one of the other HP’s with multiple hard drives, or better yet, on another Windows Home server that should be just as quick with redundancy : the Acer
****************Follow up************
After playing with the unit for some time, I found that the media collector (the best feature) wasn’t collecting my media properly. Finished up being a service issue. If you go to “Start”, Programs, Accessories, System tools and then “Scheduled Tasks” it will show the Media Collector task – you will haev to edit the feature to run more often – after that – it has been collecting really well. I set mine to run every hour.
Otherwise – works fantastic. Only drawback is the lack of redundancy . . .
Rating: 2 / 5