Comments on: HP Respond to Criticism on MediaSmart Server Performance Issues

By: Rich

Rich — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 09:44:11 +0000

I have to agree that the HP Mediasmart servers are a "Joke" these have to be the worst investment any consumer could make, the other day one of my HP power strips almost caught fire and I wrote HP about the issue, and as expected they did nothing knowing that what they have was a totally bad product design, I will never buy another HP product what kind of company creates these typical bad performing products and basically don't responed to the consumers concerns, I think they call themself HP/COMPACT and who knows what other name these clowns go by ….

By: Pinakin Desai

Pinakin Desai — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:30:06 +0000

@Bouncy -

Have a HP Mediasmart ex 475 with 512 MB of RAM, want to upgrade it to 2 GB, can you tell me how to do it?

thanks in advance

Pinakin

By: Reg

Reg — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:28:18 +0000

install the x64 connector from the share

By: Barry

Barry — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 01:48:48 +0000

How do I get a Vista 64 bit machine to connect to the EX475 server?

Thanks

By: Mach1

Mach1 — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 03:26:58 +0000

The McCaffe AV left my server sluggish, and the console was not connecting. This despite the fact that I have upgraded to 2GB of RAM. I uninstalled the Anti-Virus and all is well again. I have had no issues with the PVconnect update, but I have not really used it yet either.

By: soaklord

soaklord — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:01:03 +0000

John,
Not exactly the place for this question as the article is in regards to HP by brand and servers by use so neither Dell nor workstations would apply.

Having said that, I don’t believe you can choose the install package you get with your machine, it comes pre-configured. In fact, you will likely not even get an OS disc, rather you will get a partition that will happily reinstall OS and bloatware on your drive should you run in to any issues.

On most machines, Bloataffee and Bloarton come as 60 day trials that you can then spend money on when the trial expires just for the privilege of bogging down your system for as long as you are willing to pay. Any machine I have helped to set up usually gets about an hour to an hour and a half of uninstall time before I anoint it as ready for battle. The first three things to disappear are Norton, McAffee and AOL. Once those have disappeared, I usually install an AV that makes sense for the machine (lately my favorite has been Avast!). Avast’s free product has done nicely on the machines I have supported of late.

Now if you happen to be considering a home server, I love my HP (after adding RAM and a new proc) and would recommend it highly to date.

By: John ONeill

John ONeill — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:26:27 +0000

I have to get two new workstations and am considering DELL. Refarding MCafee and all the hassle the above posters had, can I ask Dell to remove pre delivery or do i have to go through that on each new system out of the box?

Thanks
John
http://www.backupanytime.com/blog

By: Home Server Blog » Blog Archive » HP Statement wegen MediaSmart Performance

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:13:44 +0000

[...] beim HP MediaSmart Server hat dieser signifikante Performanceeinbußen erlitten. Terry Walsh bei WeGotServed und Phillip Churchill bei MSWHS haben den Text in Englisch [...]

By: endeavour_uk

endeavour_uk — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:41:36 +0000

I was reallly enthusiastic about my MSS when it first arrived but this latest update has left me feeling disillusioned. My wish was not to treat it as another PC, but as an appliance. All my original experiences fitted with that wish. My only issue was video access via PS3, but I cut it some slack there as the PS3 is far from the Microsoft firmament. I looked forward to the new update to improve the situation and resisted the temptation to hack it.

However, when the update arrived it appears it has a pre-requisite (PP1) it fails to mention and delivers add-ins that appear to overwork the (fixed) hardware. The PS3 connectivity actually makes things worse unless you remotely log-in and hack a config file. None of this seems to fit easily with the idea of the MSS being an appliance.

So can HP tell us how we should consider or MSS? Either its an appliance, in which case we should expect the updates to be comprehensive and that we should have a single point of contact (and responsibility) for how it works with HP. Otherwise its a mini PC which they expect users to add their own software and make hardware changes without throwing their warranty out of the window.

By: Reg

Reg — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:36:21 +0000

I had the same thought so installed HP stuff first. When it all went broken I thought maybe it needed MS package as well so downloaded that.

this completely broke mcafee – so i removed all the add-ins re-installed the ms stuff and then continued with HP, worked ok but so slow (see above) that I’ve now pulled the mcafee and pv connect anyway

I had a couple of problems with the ever so helpul ‘uninstallation failed message’ but rebooting and removing in the order i put them in sorted it out. I *think* the problem was something to do with how slow everything was working.

Another note of caution – uninstalling mCafee does *not* stop the on access scanner – i had to manually kill it in services

By: Ed Harrison

Ed Harrison — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:14:29 +0000

Interesting that HP say their updates should be installed *after* PP1. As far as I’m aware, PP1 hasn’t yet arrived over Windows Update (although I see it is actually available for manual download), but the HP update was automatically downloaded to my WHS.

I haven’t actually had any problems with the HP update (but then I have 2GB of RAM), but now want to know

- whether I can safely install PP1 *after* the HP update
- whether I will be able to remove McAfee (as I certainly won’t want to pay for updates to it after the 7 month trial).

By: David Parkinson

David Parkinson — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 10:20:27 +0000

Further update NO addin can now be uninstalled!!!!

Thanks HP you broke my WHS!