| Model: HP MediaSmart Server EX475 | Manufacturer: HP |
| Website: www.hp.com | Price: $749 (US) £499 (UK) |
Update: The HP MediaSmart Server EX487 is now available, which supercedes this model. Check out our Hands On Review here!
How many great companies do you know? Take a look around right now – who made your computer, the furniture in your house, the food in your cupboards. How many of those manufacturers would you say are great companies? I don’t mean great in terms of profitability, in terms of stock performance, or even great in terms of their environmental performance and social responsibility – I just mean they make great products.
I consider HP to be a great hardware company – if I take a look around the room I’m typing this article, I see two of their products which are pretty important to me. The home computer I’m writing this review on is one of their small footprint Pavilion s7000 desktops. Tiny machine, runs Vista without too many issues, tucks away neatly under the desk – great work HP.
If I look to my right, I see a Photosmart C6180 All-in One printer. It’s a printer, scanner, photocopier and fax machine. It connects to my home network wirelessly or through Ethernet. It prints well enough for my needs, at a speed that’s great, and whilst it wasn’t cheap, it didn’t cost the earth (its ink is a different matter, but this argument is going well, let’s not spoil it). Again, nice one HP.
So, Hewlett Packard – great hardware company.
The problem with HP being a great hardware company is that they’re a pretty average software company. In fact, I’d say that when it comes to software, they’re completely rubbish. The drivers that have run my last few printers have been an abomination – massive, bloated downloads that then fail to install correctly, don’t connect my printer properly, and are packed with pretty useless pieces of “value-added” software that I neither want or need. Maybe they’re getting better, but even now, my wife’s work laptop won’t connect wirelessly or via Ethernet to the C6180. Each time she wants to print, it’s hook up that USB cable time.
On the desktop side, well, like most OEMs they’re not completely innocent when it comes to adding in a few pieces of value-added software – okay, they’re not performing as well as Sony in the services-to-bloatware-propagation stakes, but if you want a totally clean desktop when you run your first boot, you may not find one on your HP machine.
So, Hewlett Packard – great hardware, terrible software.
Interestingly, the reverse is arguably true of Microsoft. Here I am, typing this article in Word 2007, within Windows Vista. Whilst Vista has its naysayers, I think it’s a pretty decent OS (especially with SP1 installed, which speeds it up no end). Microsoft Office is fantastic, and has been for ages. Microsoft is a great software company.
Microsoft is not a great hardware company. Sure they have some good products – I have an Xbox 360 in the next room, and their accessories team is, I would say, a small jewel in the crown of the business. But Zune v1 wasn’t the best, and for me personally Zune v2 vs iPod Touch is a non-event. It’s true to say they’re a software company first and foremost, and rely on great hardware companies to support and distribute their products.
At CES in January 2006, Bill Gates revealed Windows Home Server to the world, with the HP MediaSmart Server up on stage during his keynote representing the physical embodiment of the new home server category. The accompanying press release celebrated the collaboration with HP on the MediaSmart Server – “HP and Microsoft have worked closely throughout the respective development cycles of the HP MediaSmart Server and Windows Home Server software to create a simple yet compelling product for the digital home unlike any other on the market today.” (Satjiv Chahlil, VP Marketing, HP).
It looked great, but I’d been here before. Yes, I was one of three people who bought into an earlier Microsoft/OEM collaboration – the Portable Media Center. I picked up one of the Creative units, which at first glance, looked pretty great, until you started using it. It was quickly dropped by both businesses leaving this early adopter feeling pretty peeved.
Fast forward to today, and here I am typing this article, staring at the HP MediaSmart Server. Sure, we’ve all seen your pictures -you look pretty cute, but nowadays, I don’t jump in so easily. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the WGS Hands-On Review of HP’s EX475 MediaSmart Server.
What ‘s in the Box?
This week, I received one of the first MediaSmart Servers to hit the UK. The packaging was pretty much complete, with only the manual and setup poster being draft, pre-production versions. Buy an EX475 and here’s what you get in the box:
• HP MediaSmart Server
• Power cable
• Ethernet cable
• Setup Poster
• Installation and Troubleshooting Guide
• Warranty and Support Guide
• Software Installation Disc
• PC Restore Disc
• Server Recovery Disc
The unit itself was very well packaged in protective foam, so nothing should dislodge from the server in transit. Upon removing all of the protective foam, you see the server itself is protected by an extra layer of plastic, protecting the shiny sides, bottom display and drive lights from scratches whilst in its box, which is a great touch.
The Software Installation Disc is a rebadged version of the standard Windows Home Server Connector CD, the PC Restore Disc is a rebadged Windows Home Server Restore CD and the Server Recovery Disc contains the software required to re-install your home server should it have a serious issue.
Compared to other WHS machines, the documentation provided with the MediaSmart Server is extensive. As you would expect, the Setup Poster provides a brief step by step visual guide to installing the server on your network, installing the WHS connector software on each of your home computers, setting up user accounts and so on. You can download a copy to check out (Front |Back).
For those requiring a more in depth guide to installing the server, the accompanying Installation and Troubleshooting Guide provides a 73 page guide to setting up the server, along with in depth troubleshooting tips in case of a problem. (My copy shown is a pre-production draft, so the final version may be formatted slightly differently). For those new to Windows Home Server, it provides a fabulous and easy to understand beginner’s guide to the software. Again, you can download a copy at hp.com.
Finally, HP provides a full User Guide for the MediaSmart Server on the Software Installation Disc, although this is in the form of a Windows Help file, which isn’t the most convenient format to settle back and read with. A 192 page PDF version of the guide can be downloaded from hp.com which covers all aspects of installing and using the MediaSmart Server, along with hint and tips and troubleshooting guides.
In short, the documentation which accompanies the MediaSmart Server is impressive – a comprehensive, yet understandable guide to the home server, which given the target customer, is a great lesson to other manufacturers on investing in well written and designed materials to support new users to the category.
First Looks
Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave, you’ll have probably seen pictures of the MediaSmart Server. It’s a great looking piece of kit. Like much of today’s consumer electronics, it’s clad in shiny piano black plastic (side panels), whist the front and rear panels of the machine are meshed aluminium, also in black. Interestingly, the side panels of the server are slightly tapered, improving its aesthetics no end – it’s clear that HP spent quite a bit of time working on the external look and feel for the MediaSmart Server.
Picking up the server reveals that whilst it has a small footprint, weighing in at just under 6kg, there’s a lot packed in there, and the outer casing, whilst not having the same feeling of robustness you experience with Tranquil PC’s aluminium case on the T7-HSA, still feels pretty sturdy.
The front panel of the server contains 4 LED lights positioned in front of each drive bay which are used to denote drive access. A display panel at the base of the unit contains additional indicators for power, network, and server health plus a front USB 2.0 socket. You’ll also find a small paper clip sized hole on the front panel which is used to place the server in the recovery state should you require a re-installation of the server itself.
The front panel of the MediaSmart server swings open on a left hand hinge to reveal the four removable hard drive bays. The bottom two drive bays are each fitted with a 500Gb SATA hard drive on the EX475 (1 x 500Gb on the EX470) whilst the top two bays are empty.
Each drive bay is hot swappable, – lifting a plastic handle at the front of the bay allows you to remove it from the system. Unfortunately, the drive trays and their mechanism feel very flimsy, with cheap plastic surrounds to the metal tray front – indeed, when attempting to replace the upper drive bay, the drive tray handle came out of its securing socket, providing a less than spectacular experience when using on of the server’s core features. A little extra investment here would have gone a long way to reinforce the quality of the hardware build.
The base of the unit reveals a label with serial number, as well as manufacturer’s information and Windows Home Server license. Again, aesthetically pleasing, but more than likely a pain in the backside if and when you need to retrieve this information.
The unit itself is completely closed, other than the drive trays – there are no screw holes readily available for accessing the system’s internal hardware, so if you want to have a play with the MediaSmart’s guts, you’re going to have to bash it around a little.
Around the Back
As the Windows Home Server hardware requirements dictate that servers should be headless, you won’t find any monitor, keyboard or mouse sockets around the back. What you will find are three USB 2.0 sockets, an eSATA socket (which is fully compatible with eSATA port multipliers), gigabit Ethernet socket, power socket and security lock. A rear power button completes the line-up.
Under the Hood
Let’s take a look at the EX475’s specifications:
| MS Minimum Spec | MS Recommended Spec | HP MediaSmart Server EX475 | WGS View |
| Processor | |||
| 1 GHz Intel Pentium 3 (or equivalent) | 64-bit Compatible Intel Pentium 4, AMD x64 or newer | AMD 1.8 GHZ 64-bit Sempron 3400+ processor |
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| Memory | |||
| 512Mb | 512Mb | 512Mb DDR2 DRAM |
|
| Storage | |||
| 1 x 70Gb Internal (ATA, SATA or SCSI) | 2 x Internal with a 300Gb primary hard drive | 2 x 500Gb Seagate Barracuda 7200 (ST2500063) |
|
| Network | |||
| 100 Mbps Ethernet | 100 Mbps Ethernet or faster | SiS191 Gigabit LAN |
|
| USB 2.0 | |||
|
- |
- |
4 (1 x front, 3 x rear) |
|
| eSATA | |||
|
- |
- |
1 (rear) |
|
| Power Consumption | |||
|
- |
- |
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 |
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As you would expect from such a close collaboration with Microsoft, the EX475 delivers the recommended hardware specification for Windows Home Server across the board. The provision of two 500Gb hard drives (and two 250Gb drives on the lower spec EX470) allows you to take advantage of Windows Home Server’s folder duplication right away, and the ease with which additional internal drives can be added makes future expansion a cinch (make sure you don’t pull the handle off, though like I did. There’s a definite knack to replacing the drive bays – keep the handle up, replace the bay, drop the handle down).
If you’re sitting on multiple terabytes of data, 4 external USB ports, and an eSATA port mean that you’ll get just under 9TB of storage right now if you needed it, so the HP MediaSmart Server will easily expand and grow with your family’s digital needs. In other areas, however, expansion may not be so simple.
As with the Tranquil PC T7-HSA, HP have made it extremely difficult to open up the MediaSmart’s chassis for investigation, and indeed, upgrade. To all intents and purposes, the MediaSmart Server should be treated as an appliance – a piece of consumer electronics that should last you a reasonably long time without the need for upgrade or replacement. No news is forthcoming about the ability to upgrade the system’s operating system to a future version, although my belief is that this should not be a problem. The 64-bit compatible AMD Sempron 3400+ processor is fine if the WHS team decided to move WHS v2 to the Windows Server 2008 codebase, and the included 512Mb RAM would possibly be considered the minimum required for a future version, but again absolutely fine.
Whilst the hardware delivers the Windows Home Server experience effortlessly, there are a couple of minor issues. If you’re looking for a silent server, the MediaSmart Server isn’t it – there are a couple of fans at the back cooling those hard drives, and they do make a noise – broadly equivalent to a medium sized desktop. It’s not a distraction – you won’t think there’s a hovercraft about to hit the house – but the noise is there all the same. The upside of this though is that the unit runs cool – I’ve had the review unit tucked away in the kitchen cupboard (which doubles as the WGS home server room!) and there has been very little heat build-up.
Secondly, compared to other units, the power consumption of the EX475 is relatively high, with HP quoting between 60w and 90w of consumption, depending on the number of drives fitted. Many home users will be conscious of the running costs of an “always on” home server and with Tranquil PC quoting a 24w consumption in their forthcoming T2-WHS-A2 rack mounted server, there’s definitely scope in the future for HP to work with their component suppliers on a less power-hungry system. All in all, though, it’s a great package.
Installing the HP MediaSmart Server
Installing the HP MediaSmart Server is relatively straightforward, although it’s a slightly different process compared to installing WHS RTM on your own box. Here’s a brief overview, with screenshots:
1. Attach the server to your router via the Ethernet cable, plug in the power lead and switch the unit on via the button at the back.
As mentioned, you’ll immediately hear that the MediaSmart Server isn’t the quietest of units, with rear fans keeping the system cool, and audible hard drive noises. The hard drive bay lights will flash red, then switch off, and the bottom display lights will come on. The server health light will flash whilst the system boots for around 90 seconds, and when the system is ready to proceed, the bottom two hard drive lights will turn a very nice shade of purple.
2. Insert the Software Installation Disc into your first home computer.
The Software Installation Disc is a rebranded and slightly tweaked version of the WHS Connector CD. Follow the screen prompts to install the Connector application on your home computer.
The installer installs the .Net Framework 2.0 and HP Update program before the standard WHS Connector installation routine takes over. This installs the necessary components required for Windows Home Server and then searches for the MediaSmart Server on the network.
Once found, the WHS Configuration Wizard opens.
3. Configure Windows Home Server
The server initializes itself, and asks you for a name to identify the home server on the network. The default is HPSERVER. Create a password for the server and select your options for automatic updates and participation in the Customer Experience Improvement Program and Windows Error Reporting.
Following these selections, Windows Home Server Update downloads and installs the latest updates, during which a slideshow of WHS features is displayed. Before long, the configuration is finished, and you’re ready to go.
4. Log-in to the WHS Console
5. Check HP for Updates
Slightly annoyingly, having checked Microsoft for WHS updates, the first thing that happens upon log-in is that you then have to check the HP website for MediaSmart updates. It would have been great if this step could have been automated in the configuration wizard.
6. Configure the MediaSmart Server
Okay, it’s time to configure the MediaSmart Server with software update settings, user accounts and other items. A new wizard has opened, with six steps to help you set up and configure the server quickly and easily.
- HP Software Automatic Updates
- Create User Accounts
- Configure Remote Access
- Configure HP Photo Webshare
- Turn On Media Sharing
- Learn More About Your HP MediaSmart Server
This new wizard helps you work through elements of Windows Home Server’s Settings dialog, and at the very least, provides a more structured way of setting up and configuring your server.
c
Running Windows Home Server
I gave the guys at HP a hard time earlier for including all sorts of random “added-value” software on their standard desktop systems. I was very pleased to discover, that aside from a couple of bespoke plug-ins, you will not see a trace of any additional software on the HP MediaSmart Server. The server desktop is remarkably clear of additional icons (just the WHS standard Recycle Bin, Shared Folders and WHS Console Icons) and in the Start Menu, you’ll only see Firefly Media Server (used for the additional iTunes Server add-in, Java WebStart and PostgreSQL 8.2 installed on top of the standard WHS server build.
That’s not to say that the build hasn’t been tweaked slightly compared to the standard RTM build. From working with the server for a short while, it looks like HP have tightened up some of the security policies on the home server to ensure that executable files can’t be run by any user (including the Administrator) on the server via remote desktop. Even zip files are blocked by the MediaSmart’s security settings. Whilst this may frustrate the more knowledgeable enthusiast, given the user HP and Microsoft are targeting with this system, I think it’s a wise move.
So, with kudos flying over to HP for keeping the Server pretty clean, let’s take a look at the client. What’s in store for your home computers? Again, the desktop is kept clean, with a bespoke desktop icon (replacing the standard folder icon on WHS RTM) which accesses the MediaSmart’s Control Center as well one start menu entry which performs the same task.
So far, so good – but what about the add-ins?
HP bundle the MediaSmart Server with three major features built on top of the vanilla Windows Home Server build. Firstly, HP Photo WebShare, which allows you to easily share your digital photos with family and friends via the home server , secondly an in-box iTunes server (based on Firefly Media Server) which allows your home server to collate the iTunes libraries from across your home computers and build a master library on the server. Thirdly, a link-up with domain name provider TZO allows you to select a wide range of domain names for your server, other than the freely supplied xxx.homeserver.com domain from Microsoft. We’ll take a look at these shortly.
Accessing the MediaSmart Server is managed by HP’s included Control Center dashboard, which is accessed via the Start menu or desktop icon. The Control Center consists of three tabbed menus (MediaSmart, Tools and Help & Support) which permit access to the main WHS Console, Shared Folders on the server as well as settings for the HP Photo Webshare and iTunes Server applications, and user documentation. You are also able to start a manual backup of your home computer via this console.
Rather strangely, whilst links are provided to the Shared Photos, Music and Video folders on the server, the shared Software folder is neglected, which seems like an oversight.
Overall, however, I love what HP have done with the Control Center – whilst to many (especially experts) it may seem like an extraneous dashboard sitting on top of the Windows Home Server Console (which in itself is pretty easy to use), it allows the average user to access the most regularly used areas of Windows Home Server with the minimum of effort.
HP Photo Webshare
HP Photo Webshare is the highlight of HP’s exclusive add-ins bundled with the MediaSmart Server. HP Photo Webshare is an add-in which allows you to create and build separate photo albums on your home server, and manage who has access to those albums across your friends and family. You are able to add names and descriptions to your photos, perform simple image manipulation (rotation), and order prints (of course) from HP’s Snapfish photo printing site (my wife used these guys last week and told me their next-day service was excellent). The application is managed through your web browser with a great AJAX-based UI and is simple and easy to use.
Clicking the icon in Control Center opens up your home server’s remote website in your internet browser, and takes you to your Photo Webshare main page.
A sample album is included to play with, but it’s very easy to start a new album and add image files from your server, or indeed upload images from whichever computer you are using.
You can allow friends and family to access and create individual photo albums by adding their details to the Users list. Note that this set of users is kept completely distinct from your main Windows Home Server user list. Granting access to a photo album in HP Photo Webshare does not set that user up as an account holder on Windows Home Server, in case you were worried!
One very neat addition to HP Photo Webshare is that the people you have permitted to view the album will then be sent an email with a web link pointing to the album on your home server, and access permissions are all taken care of behind the scenes.
There are a number of settings for HP Photo Webshare which can be configured in the WHS Console’s settings menu. These include giving your Webshare a unique name, configuring email notification settings via TZO.com or another email provider, managing Webshare editors and setting storage space quotas for family and friends.
I’m a big fan of HP Photo Webshare for a couple of reasons – firstly, I love the simplicity and ease with which you can set up and manage your photo albums through the browser – average users should have no problems building albums, and as long as your router and remote home server website are set up correctly, your family and friends should have no trouble checking out your photos.
More importantly, however, I think the HP Photo WebShare application and UI points the way to how Microsoft should evolve Windows Home Server’s own remote website. I’m not a great fan of the current remote website experience in Windows Home Server, which, whilst it performs its function reasonably, is a very basic, practical, business-like place to be. (And no, those stock shots of the beautiful family at play don’t help change my impression!). If you’ve ever used Sharepoint at the office, then you’ll be used to that kind of web experience and to me, it screams work, not home server.
The HP Photo WebShare experience comprises a pretty simple, but effective home user-targeted application within a rich browser based environment. You can imagine HP in the future offering family calendar applications, blogging applications and others to allow users to create a fantastic family website which they can easily update and publish what’s going on in their lives. HP can offer this, but I hope Microsoft deliver it themselves in-box in Windows Home Server v2, as the remote website experience is currently very weak.
iTunes Server
HP also bundle an iTunes Server add-in with the HP MediaSmart Server, which is based on the open-source Firefly Media Server application. HP’s add-in allows your home server to create a master library of audio files from each of the iTunes libraries on your home computers. So if you have different tracks on different home computers, they will be copied across to your home server, giving you an easy solution for playing any of your tracks on any home computer or supported digital media receiver.
You can set the add-in to watch your home computer’s iTunes libraries regularly for new tracks and podcasts from every 15 minutes up to once a day if required – importantly, copying the files to your home server does not use up one of your five DRM licences, which will come as a relief to active iTunes users.
HP Domain Names
The HP MediaSmart Server frees you from the limitation of using Microsoft’s in-built homeserver.com domain for your home server, albeit at a small cost. A relationship with TZO.com provides a unique domain name and email forwarding for your HP Photo Webshare, with a choice of HP related domains, or your own. The domain is free for the first year, then $9.99 a year after that, which isn’t a huge price if you’re keen to have your own domain.
Windows Home Server Console
Using the Windows Home Server Console on the MediaSmart is a very similar experience to the standard RTM build, however, there are a couple of new tabs and settings built in to provide you with all you need to work with your home server.
The first thing you’ll notice is a new tab at the top left of the console, which contains various settings to help you manage the MediaSmart Server, including the ability to manually check HP.com for updates, shortcut links to your Remote Access, Photo Webshare and iTunes Server settings, and a not-completely-necessary-but-still-quite-cool slider for changing the LED brightness on the front of your home server. Someone really needs to write an add-in to allow you to change the LED colours based on your personal preference - that would be very cool.
Over in the Windows Home Server Settings tab, a number of MediaSmart options are also available. Hardware Status shows the software and BIOS details of the server, along with Server Fan and Temperature status, Voltages and an option for changing LED behaviour when WHS has a server health notification.
Elsewhere, dialogs for HP Software Updates, Photo Webshare and Settings for iTunes allow you to configure elements of HP’s software add-ins. Other than that, it’s business as usual.
Server Recovery
One area that has prompted a lot of interest and a little confusion over the past few weeks in the build up to the MediaSmart Server being released is the subject of Server Recovery. Given that the machine is headless, and does not have a DVD drive, how can it be reinstalled in the case of a serious issue. The answer’s actually pretty simple, and pretty clever at the same time!
You place the included HP Server Recovery CD in one of your home computers, press a hidden switch on the home server to place it into recovery mode, and reinstall the system over your home network. Pretty neat! Here’s a runthrough of how it works.
1. Insert the Server Recovery Disk into a home computer on your network and accept the EULA.
2. Uninstall the HP MediaSmart Server and Windows Home Server Connector applications on your home computer from Control Panel.
3. Hold down the power button on the rear of the MediaSmart Server for 4 seconds to power it down.
4. Press the power button again to switch the unit on, and insert the end of a paperclip in the hole on the front panel of the server when the server health light flashes blue and red.
Next to the front USB port, you’ll see a small hole which just about fits the end of a paperclip or extended staple.
5. Return to your home computer and press Next.
Your home server will be found on the network.
6. Select your recovery option.
You have the choice of two options, and make sure you select carefully! The first, Server Recovery will reinstall the Windows Home Server operating system, leaving your data protected on the home server. You’ll have to reconfigure the server with your user accounts and passwords etc, but all of your data should remain in tact.
The second option, Factory Reset, performs a complete wipe of the server – everything will be lost, all data and settings will go and a clean build will be reinstalled on the server.
7. Be Sure
You did pick the right option, didn’t you?
8. Server Recovery Progresses
The server is reinstalled across the network.
9. Server Recovery Completes
10. Reboot Server and re-install the WHS Console on your home computer via the HP Software Installation Disc and you’re done!
The Verdict
Well, I said that HP was a great hardware company and the HP MediaSmart Server has reinforced my belief - it’s small, powerful and looks fantastic. A beautiful pin-up model for the new Windows Home Server category. Sure, there are a couple of niggles I have with its build quality, and the price could be more competitive over here in Europe. But put it up against all of the other hardware options for Windows Home Server right now, and you’d have to have a hard heart not to fall for it.
The big surprise is the thought that HP have put into their software. No bloatware. No terrible drivers. Just a small selection of add-ins which have sympathetically extended Windows Home Server’s media handling capabilities, to maximise the MediaSmart’s usefulness at the centre of the digital home. HP not killing me with terrible software? Must be a dream 
But what you’re really purchasing when you buy the HP MediaSmart Server is the stage for a perfect partnership to blossom. The HP MediaSmart Server combined with the Windows Home Server operating system is a fabulous combination of hardware and software. A simple, easy to use home server platform running effortlessly on a simple, easy to use home server – power, simplicity and flexibility in one small package. Oh yeah, and one day, it may just save your digital life. Truly the best of both worlds.
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10. January 2008 at 9:30 pm
Thanks for the review. What is the best way to view media (pics, video) stored on the HP WX470 on an HDTV? Is there a way to access internet streaming videos from the HDTV, through the HP WX470?
11. January 2008 at 1:35 am
Hi Oliver,
What you need is a DMR (digital media receiver). Take a look at some of the new V2 Media Center extenders that are coming on to the market soon, or offerings from Netgear, D-Link and Linksys….
Best wishes
Terry
16. January 2008 at 3:48 am
Shane commented: “No you cannot use RAID on Windows Home Server…”
This is flat out incorrect. I’ve used several different RAID setups in my experiments.
Firstly, you can use driverless raid that is available on several motherboards and at least one add-in card. I’ve installed and used both with
no issues.
Secondly, you can install drivers for raid cards, though some do seem to have problems, most I’ve tried worked fine. Do note, such raid is not
’supported’ by WHS, but will work.
Thirdly, and what I’m using, is an external RAID-5 box that appears as a single drive to the O/S. WHS is not even aware that there is RAID in this case. I do not use the folder duplication, since that would be redundant, and wsteful of space. Performance is fine, since even gigabit ethernet cannot saturate a single drive link. Note that if you want to use over 2TB in the storage partition, you need to use GUI partitioning. You will then be (effectively) unlimited in storage capacity with current HD size/enclousre drive number limitations.
16. January 2008 at 5:44 am
Of course, I meant GUID not GUI in my last post…
8. February 2008 at 12:04 pm
Hi
Thanks for an excellent review. This is probably going to sound thick, but can all users edit files on the server, meaning word documents and save them. Hope that make sense.
9. February 2008 at 7:52 am
Hi Gerry
As long as you’ve given the user the appropriate permissions on the folder where the file is saved, they are able to edit and save directly to the server.
Terry
11. February 2008 at 3:39 pm
Terry,
Excellent description of HP MediaSmart Server. I bought mine and installed with no issue. I’m very happy with it. I’ve also managed to change the “happy family” picture to reflect my own family, using Customizer. However, my relatives and friends are confused with the two websites’ names on the remote login page, viz.
HP MediaSmart Server Home Page
HP MediaSmart Server Webshare
They wonder which one to click for what, and why they have to login twice. I’ve been looking for some way to change those wordings and ways to reduce number of logins. Some people suggest using Whiist which evidently has problems with HP Servers. Do you or anyone have any suggestions? Thanks!
Richard
11. February 2008 at 4:49 pm
Terry,
I want to use the device as off site backup. Off my home network at my son’s house. Will it work in that capacity? Will any of HPs utilities function? Will the homeserver domain work or do I need to buy one? Thanks
12. February 2008 at 7:18 am
Hi Peter
Windows Home Server is not designed to be an off-site backup device – it’s more for backing up the computers on your home network, and needs to be part of that home network. There are add-ins which then allow you to back up parts of the server to on online (off-site) storage area, or Power Pack 1 (coming soon) will allow you to backup the server to an external hard drive which can then be taken off-site.
Best wishes
Terry
12. February 2008 at 8:00 pm
Follow-up question related to offsite backup: Can remote users upload files to the server, or only download? Thanks
12. February 2008 at 8:13 pm
Hi Peter
Yes, remote users can upload as well as download.
Terry
17. February 2008 at 6:36 pm
I was wondering can a Mac copy from the server, and save to the server?
Ryan
18. February 2008 at 2:41 am
Another Dumb question. i am looking at buying one of these things. It looks/sounds like it will do everything i want except… maybe i am missing something. if this system does not use a raid type system, what happens to the data if one of the drives does fail? sure, you can pull it out and put a new one in, but i just lost 500 gigs of pictures and maybe you are not married, but I would be living in a van by the river and fighting for visitation I am trying to create a network system that will:
Provide a central Depot from my 150+ gigs of music, act as a itunes server, hold 100 gigs of pictures, provide some offsite storage for my critical business data as well as a way for grandparents to easily download pictures of the cutest grandkids EVER. oh by the way, it needs to let me sleep better at night since i know that if a drive should fail, i need just to replace it and the system will recover my info, not end in a divorce. do i need to go with something like a netgear readyNAS? what about buffalo or perhaps a home built server? this sort of sounds out of my skill level.
18. February 2008 at 2:43 am
btw: this was a great article. Thanks
27. February 2008 at 9:42 pm
The drive extender technology that home server uses does include support for it’s own version of RAID. The server storage pool is divided up into directories…..like “Software”, “Movies”, “Music”, “Pictures”, “Public” and a folder for each user to store their files in. Each of these directories can have duplication turned on or off. If duplication is turned on, a copy of the files is made onto a separate hard drive. That way if one drive fails, there is still a second copy of the data.
One thing that is not duplicated, however, are the nightly backups. And unless you lose both a home server AND a personal computer hard drive at the same time, this shouldn’t cause a problem.
Also, if the OS drive fails, you can install a new hard drive, rebuild the OS and keep your duplicated folders. So just be sure to store important data in folders with duplication turned on.
7. March 2008 at 1:57 am
All is well with this server, except those outside my home network cannot access the webshare photo album. I spent 2 hours with an HP tech doing everything imaginable to the router. And here I find, on my own, not with the tech’s advice, a list of 10 routers HP recommends. My router is not on the not recommended list but I suspect it should be. Details:
router: Netgear wireless WGT 624 v 3
modem: Action Tec GT 701R
This rounter cannot be configured with WHS according to my experience. So off I go to Best Buy to get one of the recommended routers. Why in the hell didn’t they tell us in the beginning?
27. March 2008 at 5:12 am
I bought one and so far so good. Even applied patches today, rebooted and got the server back up and running.
1) The guest account can’t have remote access, but I do want them to ’see’ my photoshare site. So far, I can’t seem to make it work. Somebody point out the obvious for me please?
2) Why buy the EX475 for an extra $150 when you can get 0.5TB for $110? That should be half the fun, installing a new drive. Then deciding on how to configure. I would think Folder Duplication would be the best idea for the next HDD in the box.
3) I wouldn’t have thought a reboot would be required, it’s a server, right? OK, it’s just my home, so no big deal.
David
27. March 2008 at 1:03 pm
I did have to contact HP support for reasons of my own making.
They were great, I had two different calls on a single ticket and both technicians were most helpful and patient.
The second gentleman even knew what router I had from my first call, so when it came time to check some settings on the router, he told me exactly how to fix the problem.
A rare treat these days.
David
13. April 2008 at 6:32 am
I’ve received my Hp server yesterday and I’ve got a littel problem: By using IE6 I can only save my files one by one on the sever. How is it possible to change the “select” into “select all” to save mor than one file.
Thank you for you help
Pascal
France
9. May 2008 at 6:07 am
I’d originally put together a WHS from a spare small form PC I’d put together – AMD64×2 4000+, 2GB RAM, 2x 250GB SATA2 drives (internal) with 2x 750GB Seagate eSATA drives external (and a PCIe x1 dual-port eSATA controller) and an OEM WHS install.
Unfortunately some time between powering off for a couple days to work on a noisy fan and bringing the server back up, the drive controller went flaky (all drives were ‘corrupt’ including rebooting off the WHS install DVD, which worked fine on other PCs.) Since I was a couple of months behind on updating the family photo albums for my approaching-2-year-old nephew, I was in a bit of a rush and didn’t feel like replacing the motherboard and hoping that was it.
So off to the local retailers I went and grabbed an EX470.
Installation went fine initially, but after running the WHS updates and sitting at “Waiting for server to reboot” for 10 minutes, the Connector install failed. Rebooted the server, and all of its diagnostic LEDs looked fine, but they lied – the server wouldn’t get a DHCP lease from my router (which’d I rebooted several times during testing).
Long story short-ish, 2 hours of diagnosis and reconfiguration of every network parameter I could find, I called HP, at 1am local time.
5 minutes later we had the system working in Recovery Mode (doing a Factory Reset since no user data ever made it over). The trick turned out to be connecting the LAN cable directly between the EX470 and the Vista PC I was using to do the install; not sure why that worked when having them in the same gigabit switch didn’t, but who’m I to argue with success?
It’s been working like a charm since, and I’ve started the process of recovering the files from the 4 drives off the old server. The single eSATA port on the EX470 is a mixed blessing for me – I’ll be able to toss the old server’s 2 internal drives into the new server and use one of the externals, but I’d have to either go with the USB 2.0 interface (at 1/6th the potential xfer speed) for the 2nd external drive, or, as I’ll end up, use it as an eSATA external drive for my media recording PC (which is also undergoing upgrades, tired of using a VGA feed to my HDTV, got an HDMI PC with full 1080p support).
Kudos so far for the HP support, and the new system is slightly smaller and much much quieter than my old system (if also lower spec’d hardware.)
31. May 2008 at 11:07 am
Great and intuative article, being not very computer literate, could some please answer the follwing for me please:
I am looking to purchase one of these machines to add all my music 2+ terrabytes, can I and any one I allow gain access to this music remotely and play/ download it?
Sorry for the simple question.
31. May 2008 at 11:57 am
Chrispy – yes, you can allow who ever you wish to access any folder on the home server by setting them up with an account, or by allowing guest access.
Cheers
Terry
31. May 2008 at 12:10 pm
Hi Terry
Thankyou for your quick response, is setting up the accounts documented when you receive the hardware and relatively easy to do?
Chrispy
31. May 2008 at 12:27 pm
Yes, on both counts – the HP documentation is the best we’ve seen, and there’s wizards to walk you through setting everything up. You’ll be done in no time.
31. May 2008 at 2:35 pm
Thanks again Terry, another question if ok, can I use the server to burn discs from, ie if I have some music I want to put on cd and use Nero can I point Nero in the direction of the derver and burn directly from it.
Sorry for so many questions, I am somewhat hopeless and dont want to spend a vast amount of cash only for the server not to perform how I would like it to.
Thanks again
31. May 2008 at 4:21 pm
You could, but to be honest, I always play safe with burning CDs by having the files on the same computer as Nero.
6. June 2008 at 5:55 pm
Hi Terry
Can you please help, have bought the server and set it up however no matter what I do to configure the server or my router to gain remote access I keep hitting the same wall with the following statements:
Verifying that your router is accepting Web site connections
Verifying that your router is accepting Remote Access connections
I have set up the ports tcp80, tcp443, tcp4125 and udp1900 I have also contacted my service provider (virgin) to make sure these ports are open, I have also allowed my firewall to accept it and have place the server on the dmz on the router to see if that would work, all to no avail.
It is close to going out the window so I’m hoping you may beable to help before I do that.
Thank you
30. June 2008 at 8:57 am
Thanks for a great review. The EX470 was already sitting on my desk, but the review still provided some useful info for me.
In response to Gary B earlier, I had a 1 TB drive (Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB SATA II NCQ) that I added to the EX470 and it seems to work.
Had a little questions regarding that, though. The 1 TB drive was already formatted when I installed it. Inserting it in the bay wasn’t a problem. Neither was adding it to the Server Storage in the WHS Console, and I now have about 1,36 TB to play around with.
However, the new drive is incredibly slow. I attached an external USB (2.0) drive to the server to transfer a couple of hundred GB of media files. Transfer rates were between 0,3-1,0 GB/minute, at best. Anyone knows why this happens?
A couple of more things puzzle me, but aren’t really a huge problem. When checking Disk Management on the server (via remote desktop) I find the new drive partitioned, but no drive letter assigned to it, so it doesn’t show up in Windows Explorer. It also appears the Server immediately moved all shared folder contents to the new drive when it was installed (not really a problem, only surprising). On a client computer, in the WHS Console the 1 TB has been added to the total storage space, but in Windows Explorer the mapped shared folders only shows the free space from the primary disk (around 445 GB).
Kinda makes me nervous when it doesn’t do what I expect it to, but it’s no biggie. However, a slow hard drive is never fun.
Any ideas?
/Mikael
Sweden
30. June 2008 at 10:35 am
Found most of the answers myself after browsing various fora etc.
Not sure about the slow hard drive, but it seems many people have the same problem, both over ethernet and USB. There are theories that the way the server handles its storage space sometimes slows down file transfer. Some people also recommended turning off media sharing and duplication during large file transfers. I still think that file transfer over USB 2.0 should be faster, though.
That the mapped shared folders on a client computer only shows the free space of the primary drive is apparently normal, as well as the fact that the server moves data around between the disks at will. For a sensible overview of used and free disk space I guess we’ll have to use the console.
/Mikael
1. July 2008 at 1:18 am
Hi, I’m not too computer savy, so this question might be a bit simple. Does the HP MediaSmart EX475 server support anything other than media files? For example, if I need it to serve more as a storage server than media, and I decide to add a program like Office Suite which takes up a lot of space so that my system doesnt crash or restarts itself if I’m doing a few things at a time. I’m using a desktop (1.5GB) and Dell laptop (2GB). Thanks for your time! ^-^
1. July 2008 at 4:52 am
Hi Bryan
No, Windows Home Server is designed to back up files from your home computers, as well as offer additional file storage. You can run Windows Server applications on the home server itself, but you can’t host applications on the server and run them on home computers, which is what I think you’re getting at.
Terry
9. July 2008 at 5:52 pm
Does anyone know where you can buy the motherboard (alone) used in the HP 475 or something similar? Or who makes it?
I think I read somewhere it’s a mini-DTX board but could find anywhere selling them.
thanks in advance.
4. August 2008 at 8:35 pm
Hi Terry -
I’ve had my 470 for several months. It is fitted with 4 1tb drives and a 2gb RAM upgrade. Currently I have about 1.93tb free.
Just today I realized that I was under the False impression that the data was in a RAID archive. With more than half of my free space used, if a drive begins to fail and I try to remove it using the Home Server removal tool I’ll probably get an error that there isn’t enough free space to accomplish the task.
BTW, I don’t use folder replication (or is it duplication?)
I decided I’d like to purchase an external RAID sub-system (4 or 5 bays) and fill it with 1tb drives and then go back and enable File Replication on the server.
My question is: have you discovered any compatible RAID sub-systems that are plug & play with the HP 47x series?
Thanks for the help.
19. August 2008 at 10:14 pm
i really dont see why this server is so highly rated
i had an hp ex475 media (not so) smart server and its the biggest piece of crap ive ever bought….worked in computers for 20+ years…the biggest flaw in my opinion is that people firmly believe their data is safe…well it isnt…it doesnt use RAID, sure it uses a software version of RAID….why not use RAID…why reinvent the wheel!!?
the disk cannot be read by any other device (so HP support confirmed), so if your server fails, and assuming the data is ok…you get a new hp media smart server, install the disks, which auto formats them (confirmed by hp support)…great! so a rubbish product then
not only that my server refused to allow personal movie files to be played on my tv wirelessly via an xbox360 despite the sales crud stating you can (hp support / microsoft support / xbox live support all stumped with this one as well)
also had numerous failures, server crashing, whs os failures (unable to find volume errors-not a good sign!!), logon failures (despite correct details entered), missed auto backups (pc’s to be backed were on)
final straw was my laptop couldnt locate the server
sent it back – retailer confirm it was a faulty one – not good HP!!
however the non-RAID backup was a killer for me
in UK, HP support / microsoft support were useless
in fact the only thing that worked without problem was being able to play pictures on my tv via my xbox360….whoopee!!
25. August 2008 at 11:45 am
Has anyone had any problems loading the most recent update of Windows Home Connector? Last week I came home and saw the alert letting me know I needed to update the software, so of I did. I loaded it on my Laptop, which is prety old, and all went well. So I then downloaded the upgrade to my desktop that is a few years newer then the laptop and when I get to the password portion of the install I get the ” An Error has occured. Please try again at a later time.” screen. I have tried everything from deleting the software completly, reissuing certificates, disconnecting it from the network and making sure my laptop was off, and even tried loaded the software that came in the box. Same result everytime, Error.. try again later. Can anyone help out? Or point me in the right direction?
27. August 2008 at 9:12 pm
Ok, so steve p’s view is obviously pretty opposed to most comments of this thread, but is this a valid point? What do you if your WHS device fails terminally but the hard drive data is ok? It does seem a pretty significant weakness compared to standard NAS boxes that you can’t just plug the hard drive into any old PC/Linux box and read it.
Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this basic question, but I’m weighing up buying a WHS vs. a NAS box such as Netgear Readynas duo, and I haven’t seen anything to recommend WHS – so what am I missing? I don’t like that I have to install software on every PC I connect to the WHS – if something can use standard network shares that Windows already understands it seems better.
The idea of having to go through Microsoft’s web portal to access data remotely doesn’t sound ideal – I would prefer to be able to connect directly without a middle-man. And although I do like the idea of having a real PC rather than a ‘dumb’ network drive, it seems that WHS is almost turning the PC into a dumb drive by trying to restrict the interface to it.
I understand that people are writing add-ins, etc, for WHS, but a ReadyNas duo at half the price seems as customisable, uses standard formatting of hard drives, allows remote access by a number of direct means including FTPS, supports photo albums, can act as a web server, etc.
I confess to being confused by this, so please tell me what I’m missing that makes WHS so much a better option?
28. August 2008 at 5:34 pm
Hi Dan -
I guess I’ll give your questions a try.
The Netgear ReadyNAS comes with a single hard drive with 500gb starting at $399, 750gb $499, and 1tb $679 (all are MSRP). You have the ability to add a second drive as an “optional spare”, meaning you can’t increase capacity of the device only add mirroring redundancy to the data.
The HP MediaSmart device accommodates 4 hard drives (500gb is standard) and can use any size HD as long as it conforms to SATA specs. So if you have an extra drive you’re not using you can add it to the WHS storage pool. If a single drive begins to fail the OS will indicate imminent failure and advise that you ‘add’ a drive to the pool, in a single drive configuration. NOTE: I have not tested removing a single drive on the verge of failure and testing data access on a non-WHS system. I’ll have to try that.
As for installing software on every computer. That is not necessary unless you want to backup those computers to your WHS box. I only have the connector installed on two of my 8 machines. And that is for backup/WHS monitoring only. All of the other systems in my home including 3 MediaCenters and 3 Mac’s have full unrestricted access to the volumes on my WHS system.
The MediaSmart device is based on Windows 2003 and has almost every function of that operating system underlying the WHS architecture. Whether you like Microsoft or not Server 2003 is a stable enterprise class OS they’ve packaged into a unit designed for your home.
As for connecting to the device through Microsoft; that statement is inaccurate. WHS allows you to create a domain name to access your system via several methods. You are free to choose a variety of options. Any option will not result in accessing your data through a “portal”.
SFTP/FTPS, RDC, HTTP, etc. are all available on this device/OS.
More about my own config:
I agree with several folks that a true hardware RAID solution would be preferable but I understand that it’s not included because of cost. WHS offers a degree of protection by continuously monitoring the health of your hard drives and warning you when there is a problem or potential failure. I intentionally configured a system with a hard drive near the end of its life to test WHS’ ability to handle faulty hardware. I was pleased with the test.
For added fault tolerance in my final configuration I chose to take advantage of the fact that WHS is based on a server operating system. I have 4tb installed with 37% free space. If I lose a drive I am in trouble. I decided to purchase an external RAID enclosure with 4tb of storage and connected it to the eSATA port on my HP MediaSmart device. I did not make that added 4tb part of the storage pool but rather use Windows 2003 to replicate the contents of the storage pool to the external array.
Forgive me for going into the details of my system, it’s overkill for most but I can be sure my data is protected.
The point of the post is to illustrate that WHS on the HP product is not just an external storage unit with proprietary access requirements. Rather, it’s a very flexible upgradeable piece of hardware (with an excellent form factor) that supports a rich and robust operating system.
30. August 2008 at 3:08 pm
Does the Windows Home Server allow you to configure your drives into a RAID?
30. August 2008 at 6:29 pm
Dan and Steve P. both raise a critical question that I would very much like to hear an answer to. I’m a prospective buyer of the HP Mediasmart.
Dan says “What do you if your WHS device fails terminally but the hard drive data is ok? It does seem a pretty significant weakness compared to standard NAS boxes that you can’t just plug the hard drive into any old PC/Linux box and read it ?”
As Steve P. points out, putting the old hard drives into a new WHS device would appear to trigger a reformatting of the old drives – versus being able to recover the data.
Is this true ?
17. October 2008 at 10:55 pm
@Darcy – Hi! Nice review Terry, would’ve been nice seeing more screenshots of the UI
And to answer some questions that popped up. Yes it is true that MSS ‘initializes’ and then formats the drives witch are inserted into the unit and added into the storage pool. It behaves in the same manner with USB-media. It’s only meant for adding storage capacity, empty that is. I could think of many ways of tweaking the system to your end tho, since it is a bare-bones WHS 2003 underneath the so called ‘middle-man’ interface.
If something goes awfully wrong there are still ways of recovering from it, of course it isn’t as redundant as a mirrored RAID -system but it’s still pretty good. If you keep an adequate overhead capacity in the system (25% empty space in a 4×500GB config, or 50% in a 2×500GB config…) You should be able to make a system recovery that moves stuff away from the hard disk that is failing, after that you can replace the failed HDD. If there is not enough space to migrate everything or some data is corrupt it’ll give you a list of what data will be lost. In the worst case where you are forced to format everything, all is still not lost. The files might be visible through a USB adapter/HDD-case plugged into a computer running XP, etc. an OS that can read an NTFS filesystem. There should be a hidden DE -folder there witch contains all of the stuff witch once was in the data pool. DE is short for Drive Extender meaning that the files are probably spread out on different physical hard disks and it might take some time to find all the files you want and re-assemble them into the former folder structure.
Here’s a link to an MSDN blog covering some details
http://blogs.msdn.com/chrisgray/archive/2008/07/04/home-server-recovery-4-4-you-don-t-want-to-replace-the-hardware-you-just-want-your-files-back.aspx
You should be able to see the file structure also in a linux based system. So it is highly probable that someone can help in getting the files out.
What comes to media, if you have DRM (Digitally Registered Media) you can’t stream that from the server. The newest HP/Microsoft updates apparently add this feature (the PVConnect software supposedly supports it), but if you got only one license on the file it’ll stick on your PC and the file sent to the server is then again useless. But there might be a workaround for that.
The issues that MikeA had sounded just like a DNS resolution error.
So the main problem is that when the client PC tries to connect to (ex. HPSERVER) the router directs the IP request to the DNS, witch resides on the internet side, if you can get the servers IP adress and pinging it works then it’s most certainly this issue. Or when the server was first booted, it asked for an IP and somehow got it from the DNS, witch again won’t work in the home network at all. The easiest way to get past this issue is to remove the WAN/Internet cable from your router, or disable the ADSL/DSL/WAN connection, so that all IP-traffic will stay within the local area network (your home network that is) and start everything from the beginning. It is also using UPnP to configure the router, witch might not always work. And firewalls, etc. are good at messing stuff like this up in the installation phases, so disable, portforwarding, etc…
Again something from the MSDN, tho this certainly aint the right document, it has some advice and info on these issues
http://blogs.msdn.com/eldar/archive/2007/04/28/windows-home-server-client-join-troubleshoooting-hints.aspx
The product most certainly has it’s pro’s and cons, also it’s still kind of experimental, but it is a good device when used the way it was designed to be used. I can’t wait to see the prices for the ‘Squash’ tho
3. November 2008 at 9:48 am
@Terry Walsh -
Terry,
Love your site. Do you know if the external eSata connector supports eSata II arrays?. The specs from HP says that you can mix or match the internal drives with eSata I and II and wondering if the external connector supports eSata II.
Thank you for your time.
Pete
4. November 2008 at 7:14 pm
Just spent a good few hours playing around with my new EX475 setup and home environment, reading reviews like this and downloading drivers and stuff.
There are some very intersting comments in this review concerning the security of the environment and whether or not RAID would have been a useful addition.
I can understand why a RAID system would or could cause problems when you come to add additional drives or if you start to have different drives sizes, etc. At the moment 500Gb drives would be common, but in 12months I suspect more 1Tb drives to be in use and how would you go about migrating from one to the other in a RAID configuration.
The idea of keeping FREE space to ensure that a drive failure can be managed certainly counters any ideas about cost savings as you end up having to buy the extra disk space any way. The option is does give you though is not to have a belt and braces approach for the backup data from your machines.
In some ways, it seems a better idea to distribute your data around your home network and then use the LIBRARY functionality of the apps to pull it all together to get a single view. You may still have some failures, but your eggs won’t all be in one basket and then you can use the WHS backup/restore functions to get the failed machine back online.
What I would like to see though is a way of ensuring the SYSTEM partition is protected. In the earlier comments there is references to this being possible with Power Pack 1, but I haven’t seen anything anywhere about how this is actually done. Is it an option that magically appears if a USB device is added? Does anyone have details?
Last comment concerns the client end software. I have Microsoft OneCare installed in my environment and it would be great if this was also available on the WHS. My concern now is the number of SYSTOOL icons I have to keep an eye on. I now have WHS, OneCare and HP Updates.
P.S.
Thanks for a great initial review and all the subsequent comments.
14. November 2008 at 11:20 pm
@mike – I had the same thing. Make sure you have netbios over tcp/ip selected and also put the ip of the HP server in the hosts file … I know that should not be necessary but it makes it work.
8. January 2009 at 4:09 am
There is one major item that was missed in the review. HP has disabled the administrator rights that permit the user to install software and add-ins. So, it is not possible to install software like play-on to spool Netflix instant play videos or third-party add-ins. It is like buying a PC where you cannot install programs, expect those offered by the hardware vendor. This is VERY limiting. What is worse, there is no notice to the consumer about this important limitation. I spent over a day copying and configuring the server, then found I could not add my other software. I ended up returning the server and now have WHS on an old e-machine running the Microsoft version that provides full administrator rights.
8. January 2009 at 7:12 am
@Scott – No they haven’t. This is a standard security feature. Simply right click on the app’s desktop icon and select Properties, then Unblock. You can then install the software.
Terry
21. January 2009 at 12:33 pm
I have just bought an ex-display EX470 server which came without any of the installation disks. HP have agreed to send me copies of the missing disks, however, it will take approximateley 3 weeks. Do you know how or where I could get copies a bit more quickly than that?
Great discussion page by the way.
Thanks!
PS I live in London NW2 if anyone would care to let me make copies of their disks.
23. January 2009 at 7:03 pm
@Simon Bell -
Why do you need the cd’s? All the software that comes with the system is downloadable.
24. January 2009 at 10:04 am
Not according to the HP help desk. I’ve also spent ages searching online, with no success. Could you possibly post a link to the software?
Thanks
24. January 2009 at 1:11 pm
@Simon Bell – Please do not request links to copyrighted software here at WGS. Thanks.
1. March 2009 at 9:30 am
@Pascal – click on file one; press shift, hold and click on last file (all files should be selected); release shift and drag all files to desired directory on server.