Pros & Cons
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- Generous drive expandability.
- Fast performance on Gigabit networks.
- A compatible media-oriented companion product line on the way from HP.
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- Wired Ethernet connectivity only.
- No print server.
- Drives are not hot-swappable.
HP MediaSmart Server EX470 Specs
| Device Type: | Expandable Home NAS |
| External USB Hard Disk Expansion: | Yes |
| Hard Disk Configuration: | JBOD |
| Hard Disk Manufacturer: | Seagate |
| Hard Disk Model: | Barracuda 500 |
| JBOD/RAID Disks: | 2 |
| Maximum Storage Capacity: | 500 GB |
| Media Server: | Yes |
| Network Medium: | Wired |
| Printer Server: | No |
| Rack-mount or Standalone: | Standalone |
| Remote Access: | Yes |
| UPnP Capable: | Yes |
| Wired Network Speed: | 10/100/1000 |
For a good example of what a
The box itself looks great. It's a blue-black case with glowing blue LEDs that indicate occupied drive bays, power, and server health. A front-mount case door keeps the drive bays hidden from view. Like all WHS boxes, this one runs headless—without a display, keyboard, or mouse. You manage the NAS via a console app on any networked Windows machine or through a browser using the Remote Access feature. The idea is to power the box on, connect it to your home network, and then place it on a shelf. You shouldn't ever have to touch it again, unless you're upgrading drives.
The server's four bays accept drives of any capacity (the EX470 I tested comes with one 500GB unit), but the capacities must match. External drives, which connect via USB ports (three on the front and one in back) as well as an eSATA port in the back, can vary in storage size and provide easy expandability.
A caveat here: First, the MediaSmart connects to your network only via a wired Ethernet port—at least for now. The box runs a stripped-down version of Windows Server 2003, so you can theoretically attach a USB wireless dongle. But because Windows Home Server can't install software in the same way as a regular Windows operating system, the dongle will have to have a driver and an install program specific to WHS. And you likely won't see one of those until well into 2008. That means wherever you place your HP MediaSmart right now had better be near an Ethernet cable.
Another thing to consider is that even though the MediaSmart is headless, it's still built as a super-mini-tower. It's not well designed for slipping into an entertainment center, for example. And even if your entertainment center can hold it, you've also got to think a bit about future expansion. The MediaSmart can expand quite a bit using new internal drives, but many folks will want to use the external ports instead of rearranging the internal drives, since swapping them means backing up your internal data, putting in the new drives, and restoring the original data to the NAS. Adding an external drive is simply a matter of connecting the drive and waiting for Windows Home Server to add it to the overall storage limit. That's a no-brainer, but then those external boxes will require data and, probably, power cables, too. Not thinking ahead here is a great way to turn your slick entertainment area into a rat's nest of cables.—
Plunging In
After unboxing the MediaSmart, all I had to do was power it up and connect it to my simulated home network, then install the HP Windows Home Server software on at least one Windows PC on the network. And I do mean the HP Windows Home Server software that comes with the MediaSmart, not the standard Microsoft Windows Home Server software. I tried the standard software just for grins and came up empty.
The software installs several programs. One is a management console (for the MediaSmart) that you can activate from the task bar; another is an encrypted network session manager that runs on top of TCP/IP. This last is required if you want Windows Home Server to do things like remote control, advanced backup, and PC management.
To make full use of the MediaSmart, you need to install the HP software, though it's worth noting that computers on the network don't require it to access the device. As a basic NAS, the MediaSmart works fine over standard IP with no client software. My Mac, for example, saw the MediaSmart just fine and even allowed its user to access a protected folder. That's fine for OS X and Linux clients, but for Windows PCs, there's really no reason not to install the software: You'll just be missing out on cool features.
When you have the client software installed on at least one Windows PC, that system will automatically find the MediaSmart on the network and start the setup routine. This is standard Windows Home Server stuff, though HP also adds its own HP Update, which keeps track of MediaSmart updates. The first set of software updates takes a few minutes, as both Microsoft and HP vie for software update time. Just keep clicking on Okay and have a little patience. You'll be prompted for a server name (pick carefully, because changing this is a bit of a pain in the nethers) and a strong administration password, which means a minimum of seven characters with a mix of upper and lowercase, numeric, and symbol characters.
Once the server is fully accessible, the install wizard walks you through the rest of the Windows Home Server installation process—adding users, setting up remote access, managing desktops, configuring backup, and so on. HP hasn't done much to change this—a good thing. To access HP-specific functions, you finish the installation wizard and open the main administration console.
You'll see links to software updates, remote-access settings, basic media serving via WMC, and photo web-share settings—again, standard WHS stuff. You'll also see an LED brightness control and an iTunes Server, which are HP-only. The LED control does exactly what you'd think: turn the brightness on those blue LEDs up or down, using a networked control rather than a little thumb dial on the server box. Cute for about 90 seconds, then my ADD kicked in.
The iTunes Server is a different matter. Turns out this is based on the Firefly Media Server, an open-source project that HP has WHS-ified as an add-on. It looks as if it has also done some work on the user interface, which is accessible off the main console via a "Settings for iTunes" icon. From here you'll find controls for allowing easy copying of existing music libraries, starting and stopping the server, and refreshing the music database.—
The Acid Test
To evaluate the MediaSmart, I simulated a home network with a
I tested the MediaSmart with the IoZone file system benchmarking tool. This ran on a Windows XP Pro desktop connected to the MediaSmart's Gigabit Ethernet port via a Gigabit Netgear GSM7324 switch. The MediaSmart did surprisingly well in this scenario, though its performance tended to drop with increases in file size. With 32MB files, the server managed to transfer at 123 MBps, slowing to 47.2 MBps with 1GB files. Under read operations, the box wasn't quite as quick, running at 56 MBps with the smallest files (32MB), then dropping sharply starting at the 256MB file size, culminating at only 21.2 MBps with 1GB files. That may sound like a steep drop, but for standard home use, it's fine, unless you're planning to use the box to serve HD video, which needs throughput of about 30 MBps to display well.
I didn't run RAID tests, because neither WHS nor the MediaSmart supports standard RAID. WHS does a RAID-like implementation at the OS level using a selectable feature called folder duplication. HP hasn't written any hardware RAID drivers to run beneath this feature of WHS, and perhaps never will if the software works as advertised. Just be sure to enable folder duplication at the WHS config screen and select critical data folders.
Overall, the MediaSmart sets the current standard for home NAS servers: It's the new Editors' Choice in this class. Fast performance on Gigabit Ethernet networks coupled with a nice price and Windows Home Server ease of use make this a package most home networks will enjoy. The MediaSmart costs considerably more than the similarly home-oriented
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