Over in San Francisco this week, Macworld visitors have been treated to a glimpse of the new HP MediaSmart Server which now supports data backup for Apple Macs.
Whilst it’s incongruous to think of a Windows-based product being showcased at a Mac trade show, clearly it’s hit the mark as Macworld magazine editors awarded the product a “Best of Show” gong yesterday.
They said, “HP’s MediaSmart Server is a server for the home. The idea is that it gives you one place to store all your family’s shared libraries of photos, music, and video, and provide a backup drive for every computer in the house.
It looks like a mini-tower. It’s got four drive bays. You can buy it with one or two of those bays full, for 750GB or 1.5TB of storage. You can plug any SATA drive into the remaining bays if you need more storage.
The MediaSmart Server isn’t new, but the latest version adds improved Mac compatibility. For one thing, it now works as an iTunes Server. You can copy your iTunes libraries to it, then access those combined libraries from any computer in the house. (Unfortunately, the media collection tool, which can go out and find all those libraries and do the copying on its own, only works with Windows PCs for now.)
The MediaSmart Server can also work as a centralized backup drive for everyone on the network. The key addition there: Unlike other network-attachable drives, it’s compatible with Time Machine.
The HP MediaSmart Server is specifically designed for homes with a mix of Macs and Windows PCs. It requires a PC for the initial installation in large part because the server itself runs on the Windows Home Server OS. But once you’ve done that set-up, the MediaSmart is fully accessible from your Mac.
All in all, it’s a really promising solution for any home that has both Macs and Windows machines and no central place to store and protect the family’s digital media assets.”
So what happened to that rumoured Apple Home Server, then?
More Info: Macworld
8. January 2009 at 6:53 pm
Sounds like Apple will not have any cool server hw for the home anytime soon – embrace HP, better than putting WHS on a Mac Mini (eeewwwwwww!)
8. January 2009 at 7:01 pm
Any update from the HP booth on upcoming updates to the prior MediaSmart line (EX470/475). I’d like to get the same UI available in EX485 unit?
8. January 2009 at 7:23 pm
‘Cold day in hell predicted next.’
LOL! Who would ever have expected a HP/Microsoft product getting the Best Of Show Award at Macworld. Great!
8. January 2009 at 8:10 pm
Any idea yet if the Mac/Time Machine compatability will also be available to us 470/475 owners?
8. January 2009 at 8:52 pm
@Neil – Yep, you’ll get Mac backup and Amazon S3 Online backup on the EX470/475. No timings as yet
8. January 2009 at 10:58 pm
Someone should have demo’ed a hacked AppleTV streaming video and music from a WHS. What a nice combination, and makes windows media extenders look like dog doodoo.
10. January 2009 at 9:10 pm
@Terry Walsh – I’m looking forward to reading more about the availability of the new software for the prior versions of HP’s Home Server line, since I have one and would love to able to add my mac machines to it, time-machine style.
12. January 2009 at 4:58 am
Will this work attached to Time capsule and will it back up data using parallels on a mac?