HP Mediasmart Server EX475 Unboxed

By on November 16, 2007 in Hardware, Windows Home Server

Finally got the chance to get the HP Mediasmart Server unboxed – and wow, it really is small. Not as small the the Tranquil T7-HSA, but considering this is holding 4 drive bays, it’s tiny!

img 0463 150x150 HP Mediasmart Server EX475 Unboxed img 0464 150x150 HP Mediasmart Server EX475 Unboxed img 0465 150x150 HP Mediasmart Server EX475 Unboxed img 0466 150x150 HP Mediasmart Server EX475 Unboxed img 0467 150x150 HP Mediasmart Server EX475 Unboxed img 0469 150x150 HP Mediasmart Server EX475 Unboxed img 0470 150x150 HP Mediasmart Server EX475 Unboxed img 0472 150x150 HP Mediasmart Server EX475 Unboxed img 0473 150x150 HP Mediasmart Server EX475 Unboxed

So, I’ll be putting the Mediasmart Server through its paces tomorrow for next week’s review – if you have any questions, shout now and I’ll do my best to answer.


Enjoyed this post? Share it.

If you enjoyed reading this post, then why not share it with your friends and followers?

About Terry Walsh

Terry Walsh is the founding editor and owner of We Got Served. Since February 2007, the site has provided detailed coverage and analysis of the emerging home server category, and has subsequently grown into a trusted outlet for digital home news and reviews.
View all posts by Terry Walsh →

Sign Up for WGS Daily News

If you don't want to miss out on the latest news from We Got Served, why not subscribe to our daily digest? You'll get the day's headlines and a short summary of each news item delivered straight to your inbox each morning.

, , , , , , , , , , ,

  • TB

    I would be really interested to learn if this machine can be started by WoL (wakeup on LAN). This is a crucial feature for me as I would like to start it from my notebook via WLAN.

    Looking forward to the review!

  • http://www.ultim8pc.co.uk Ultim8pc

    W00t! Nice one! :)

  • ion

    because it will be always on, what’s the power consumpion?
    Thanks!

  • Terry Walsh

    TB – you should be able to start any WHS machine via the WoL add-ins available here: http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/windows-home-server-add-ins/

  • Terry Walsh

    ion,

    Power consumption is as follows:

    EX470 (single drive): ~52 W idle state, ~60 W full load
    EX475 (two drives): ~60W idle state, ~73 W full load
    With three drives: ~68W idle state, ~86 W full load
    With four drives: ~76W idle state, ~99 W full load

    Cheers
    Terry

  • http://green-pcs.co.uk David

    Terry – good to finally see power factors – can you please confirm these are ‘measured’ by you, or are they from some other source. Shame that a home server has to take so much power consumption (on 24/7) – 60W = approx 6-8 low power light bulbs (burning 24/7).

  • Terry Walsh

    Hi David

    No, these aren’t measured by me – they’re HP’s statistics, taken from the EX475 manual.

    Best wishes
    Terry

  • Charlie

    Terry,

    Thanks for all of your insight to date. I ordered my EX475 last week, based largely on your reviews of WHS. My goal is to eventually replace my existing network of four Replay TVs with a system based on Windows Media Center (Vista) to stream recorded TV shows between those four rooms. Currently I can watch shows recorded in any room from any room. I’m a little confused as to whether I would have the same capability with say four Vista Ultimate (or Home Premium) PCs connected to the EX475 without adding some third party software to the EX475.

    Thanks again for you time!

    Charlie

  • Dan Mahady

    Does the new mediasmart have a print server?

  • http://green-pcs.co.uk David

    Dan, it couldn’t be any easier – check out our tests and experiences : http://green-pcs.co.uk/2007/08/18/whs-and-usb-printers/

  • Terry Walsh

    Hi Dan,

    As David points out, one of the great things about WHS is that it can act as a print server out of the box, so you can use any WHS box as a print server.

    Cheers
    Terry

  • Terry Walsh

    Charlie

    The only issue you’ll face with a Media Center setup as you describe is that Windows Home Server does not automatically backup Media Center’s Recorded TV folder (due to its size) – it classes it as a temporary folder.

    As long as you had sufficient bandwidth on your network, you can of course stream between Media Center PCs without involving the server, or if you were to manually move the recorded TV files to the home server, you would be able view the files from any PC on the home server.

    Terry

  • Miles

    Hi Terry
    I’ve three questions:
    1 How hot does it get?
    2 How quiet is it?
    3 Is 512MB of RAM sufficient / how easy would it be to increase the RAM?

    Thanks.

    Miles

  • Walter Wood

    I have a few more weeks left on my WHS beta copy which I am running on a box built from spare parts with both an internal and external drives. I am trying to decide if I want to buy WHS to use with this or another computer, or to buy an HP (or another hardware companies) server package. If I just buy the OEM software one of the options I have been conisdering is getting a small HP or Dell desktops (used) and using my current drives. I figure this last option would cost around $300US including the computer and software.

    My question is other than the size and conveninece of HP’s Mediacenter hardware, what does HP provide other than the basic WHS features and the ability to share photos?

  • Terry Walsh

    Walter,

    The only extras on top of what you say is an in built iTunes Server, which copies your files from each iTunes library on your home computers and builds a master library on the home server. Secondly, the HP Mediasmart also offers the choice of a bespoke domain name for your home server’s website (this is a paid option after 1 year).

    Cheers
    Terry

  • Terry Walsh

    Miles

    Will get back to you on 1&2, but on 3, it’s very difficult to upgrade the RAM as the unit is sealed. 512Mb is sufficient for a home server, though.

    Terry

  • Brian

    Terry

    1.0How much drives do you have installed
    and how much data have you transferred,

  • Brian

    Sorry hit send before I had finished

    does the server balance storage endlessly

    Regards

  • Terry Walsh

    Miles,

    Question 2: It’s not all that quiet – there are fans in the rear of the unit which spin quite loudly – it’s certainly as loud as the WHS box I built. So I wouldn’t call this a “silent runner”.

    Terry

  • Terry Walsh

    Brian

    There’s 2 x 500Gb drives installed with about 80 Gb being backed up. Storage Balancing has completed, so no, it’s not going endlessly.

    Cheers
    Terry

  • Callum

    I have a PS3 set up in the living room and an Xbox 360 set up in my bedroom, can i connect both of these to my EX475 and use them as a media extender to play content through my tv? I think the Xbox should be ok because it is obviously running on microsoft software but the ps3 might not work?

  • Terry Walsh

    Hi Callum

    You should be fine with both – just make sure Media Sharing is switched on on your EX475 (Settings Tab in the WHS Console)

    Terry

  • Andrew Blatch

    Why does my MediaSmert EX475 server regularly ‘balance’ without PC back-ups, without new files being transferred, without the server having been used at all?

  • http://www.ljroc.com Jim

    I just go my WHS/HPMediaSmart475 in and hooked up.
    I have a coule questions:
    1-Can the 512 RAM be upgraded to 1GB?
    2-How can I set up the server to give out a Good Certificate. Every time I log into the server I get the Certificate Error.

    Appreciate your time.

  • Benski1970

    Originally Posted By Terry WalshHi Callum

    You should be fine with both – just make sure Media Sharing is switched on on your EX475 (Settings Tab in the WHS Console)

    Terry

    @Terry Walsh -

    Hi there… I’ve just picked up an EX475, and just can’t get the PS3 to see it. The PS3 can see other media servers (basically two PCs that we are also running on wired connections into the router), but not the EX475. The EX475 has media sharing turned on, and I’ve also enabled Guest access, just in case that’s relevant, but the PS3 is still not seeing it. Any ideas what else I can try to get it working? Thanks for any help you can give.

  • http://www.wegotserved.co.uk Terry Walsh

    Yep – ensure PVConnect is installed (it’s a downloadable update via HP update), and you should be fine.

  • Benski1970

    Thanks Terry. I’m sure that is a useful step in the right direction as I hadn’t done this yet. Having installed it, the PS3 is still not detecting the MediaSmart Server though. The PS3 is giving its usually cryptic error messages while it hunts for media servers with a ‘DLNA Server Protocol Error (7531)’ – whatever that means! I will carry on plugging away at trying to get this to work, and will post a solution if I can find one. Do you have any other top tips I could try? Thanks!

  • Terry Walsh

    PS3 running the latest update?

  • Terry Walsh
  • Benski1970

    :-) Yes, it is. I just updated it this afternoon. And funnily enough, I’d just seen the page you linked to, and tried the Disable, Enable trick, but still no joy. Media Servers are being found by the PS3, but not the HP box, which is the one thing I really want it to link to.

  • Benski1970

    Hmm. I’ve had no more luck here:

    - PVConnect is installed (and I assume it’s running OK – it looks fine)
    - The PS3 has the latest updates all applied
    - The music folder has 7 tracks in it to share, which are playable by other PCs via iTunes
    - The PS3 still gives occasional DLNA errors (7531), but not always
    - The PS3 can see other PCs on the network, and can stream music from them
    - But the server is still invisible to the PS3

    I think I’m at a dead end now. Does anyone have any other ideas? Is there any other software that I could/ought to try to get the PS3 to see the media server? Thanks for any help – technology rarely seems to be as plug-and-play as it should be…

  • Michael

    Hi Benski1970,
    It’s so good to see someone really follows up on his/her issues.
    Iv’e been searching and reading on the HP mediasmart product the hole evening, and I came across an article saying u can hook your x-box 360 up to the HP device, but it doesn’t say anything about the PS3, which I could also benefit from, because I like you have a PS3. Maybe you should try sending a mail to HP and hear if someone inthere knows if it can be done. But im not so sure. HP made the HP mediasmart server with help from Microsoft, so thats problerly also why PS3 has no compatabillity to the server… kinda smart and shit at the same time :)

  • Benski1970

    Hi Michael. Thanks for your tips. Unfortunately I got nowhere here. HP say they won’t officially support attempts to connect with a PS3 and wouldn’t help at all. Continued searches online led to a few hints and suggestions, but all have proved fruitless. I even tried uninstalling PVConnect and trying TVersity, but the PS3 still won’t see it. Who knows where the problem lies. The PS3 still gives frequent DLNA Protocol Errors when I try searching for media servers, but the fact that it can see other PCs on the network, but not the MediaSmart server, makes me doubt that the problem is entirely with the PS3.

    Essentially, I would advise anyone considering purchasing an HP MediaSmart server to beware of this. The box will not stream music, pictures or video to a PS3, this functionality is not supported by HP, and nobody seems to know how to get it to work. Ultimately I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it’s broken and despite 10+ hours of tinkering, I still don’t know why. Maybe some combination of system updates from HP, PVConnect and Sony will get it running at some point in future, but for now it’s broken, and it’s apparently not fixable.

    Of course, if anyone can prove me wrong, I would be delighted to hear from them. :-)

  • Benski1970

    One more twist to the story here. HP have just sent me this link:

    http://www.mediasmartserver.net/wiki/index.php?title=Installing_Windows_Media_Player_11

    This essentially tells you to hack Windows Media Player 11 so that it runs on the server. It all sounds very promising, except that it still doesn’t work. WMP does give a clue though – under Media Sharing, there are no devices listed at all – not other PCs, no PS3, nothing.

    As I’ve had no joy with PVConnect, Tversity or WMP11, I wonder if there’s a common problem. Maybe something in the router? Maybe some other setting somewhere that they all rely on, and which nobody has mentioned yet. If anyone has any suggestions, I’d be happy to try. Nobody likes being beaten by technology! :-)

  • PS3Smart

    @Benski1970 – hi Benski. I’m like you, a PS3 owner and I’m planning to buy a mediasmart server. It’s quite disappointing to hear that you can’t link PS3 directly to it. I have Tversity installed on my PC right now and PS3 is streaming everything I throw at it via Tversity. Most of the videos play directly on the PS3 without the need of transcoding at all since most of the .avi are encoded with divx or xvid, which PS3 supports. I’m running both my PC and PS3 on a G band wireless connection.

    http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/whssoftware/thread/88170a57-4e7e-4009-b1c0-c8665cf43ab1/

    Here is a not so perfect solution. It’s more like a workaround. Download the latest version of Tversity. You don’t need the PS3 patch as mentioned in the guide.

    Hope you can get it to work. If you can’t find the Tversity on your PS3, make sure you have added Tversity to the windows firewall exception list or any other firewall program you’re running.

    Regarding the DLNA error you get from time to time, from my experience, it’s mostly due to network issues. I get that sometimes when my wireless signals is acting up. Try another router or switch if you have access to one and see if it helps. It you’re running your PS3 or your PC on the wireless connection like me, try to connect them wired and see if you still get the DLNA error.

    Best of luck. :)

  • Brian911

    Like most of you, I have a PS3 and I have 360. I have had my MediaSmart Server for about 6 months and have absolutely no problems getting the PS3 to stream Photos, Videos, or Music. The weird thing for me is that I cannot get it to work on the 360 although I haven’t tried very hard considering how loud my 360 is. The other weird thing is that with PVConnect installed on my HP, I actually see the Media Smart Server twice, one for PVConnect and once for Microsoft Media Sharing. However, I cannot get the Microsoft Media Sharing to see anything in any of the folder, although I have not played with it a whole lot, because it works with PVConnect.

    In summary, please don’t say that the HP MediaSmart Server does not work with the PS3, because it absolutely does.