The home server, codenamed “Encore”, has been widely anticipated by the Windows Home Server community ever since we mentioned it was in development a few months ago.
Encore retains the chassis of the previous models, with minor cosmetic changes to the front panel lights, which are now light blue and the top panel of the server which is now black rather than silver. Internally, however, the hardware is upgraded with 2Gb of RAM installed and a 64-bit ready Intel Celeron 440 processor replacing the previous model’s AMD Sempron.
The biggest news however is not hardware related, but software related. HP have built a new suite of exclusive add-ins on top of the base Windows Home Server platform to ensure that the EX485 and EX487 truly live up to their “MediaSmart” promise. In the new home server, you’ll find:
- Mac Backup (backup data on Macs running OSX 10.5 or greater)
- Media Collector (searches all home computers for music, videos and photos continually, and automatically copies them over to your shares )
- HP Photo Publisher (publish your photos to a wide range of online photo services including Picasa, Flickr, Facebook, Snapfish or publish online on your own home server)
- Web Media Streamer (streams music and photos stores on your home server to a remote computer or device over the Internet)
- HP Photo Viewer (create and view slideshows of your photos for family and friends)
- Online Backup (backup your shares online using an Amazon S3 powered storage solution)
- Twonky MediaServer 5.0 (upgraded from the previous model)
- iTunes Server (play music and videos stored on your home server in iTunes)
- Power Management (schedule the home server to sleep when not in use)
- McAfee Total Protection Service (Anti-virus protection)
Certainly the incluson of these add-ins elevate the new model to be the most fully-featured home server on the market today, and those of you running mixed Mac and PC households will certainly welcome the ability to back up and protect your Macs.
The EX485 comes with 750Gb of storage and is priced at $599 whilst the EX487 has 1Tb (2 x 750Gb) and will be sold at $749. If you’re in North America, you can place orders for the new models from 5th January 2009 and units will begin shipping in early February. At this point, no pricing or availability has been announced for other countries – as soon as we know, you will too.
We’ve had an Encore unit for a few weeks and you can read our thoughts on it now in our detailed five part review.
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29. December 2008 at 1:21 pm
So, does it have jumbo frames support this time? What’s the status of port multiplication on the eSATA port?
Honestly, it looks like this is the box I’ve been looking for.
31. December 2008 at 9:18 pm
Hmmm. I use Microsoft Live Sync (previously Foldershare) to backup and keep all my PCs and Macs in sync and backed up with my EX 470. I am thinking I will buy a EX 485 and run Live Sync on that as well and thereby have my EX470 as an offsite backup (will have to find somewhere to leave it). Think I prefer that to using Amazon S3.
I do use Mozy on a Mac (on the folders that the EX470 syncs) so I do have offsite storage but find the software sluggish and a little buggy.
2. January 2009 at 1:53 pm
Will there be any way to upgrade the software for us early adopters of the HP MediaSmart Server or are we stuck with the archaic user interface?
5. February 2009 at 6:15 pm
I asked HP UK (26/1/09) when the new Encore Mediasmart servers would be available in UK. They said “unfortunately this product is now only available to purchase within the US. It will not be available to release within the UK”. Has anyone any better information, surely this can’t mean never?