Over the weekend, the manual for the Acer Aspire easyStore Home Server H340 (now, there’s a mouthful) popped up on the internet and of course, as soon as we got our hands on the manual, we plundered it to find out more about the features that Acer have packed into the product.
Here’s a rundown of what to expect, with (blurry – sorry!) screenshots:
Comedy Contacts at Acer
Before we get into the features, someone at Acer is clearly having a bit of fun in the manual’s Certificate of Conformity. I’ll let you work it out for yourself.
Spot it? Oh, come on! 
Right, let’s get back to work…
Specifications
The manual confirms the specifications of Acer’s new baby:
| Processor: | Intel® Atom™ Processor |
| Chipset: | Intel 945GC Express Chipset and ICH7R |
| Drive storage: | Up to four 3.5-inch hot-swappable SATA hard disk drives (HDD) |
| Memory: | Up to 2 GB DDR2 MHz unbuffered SDRAM |
| Ethernet: | High performance (10/100/1000) Gigabit Ethernet port |
| I/O ports: | 2.0 ports (1 front and 4 rear), Gigabit Ethernet port, eSATA port, recovery/reset button, USB |
| Power: | 200 W, 100-240 V AC |
| Server operating system (OS) support: | Windows Home Server |
| Home computer OS support: | Windows Vista 32-bit and 64-bit Edition Windows XP 32-bit and 64-bit Edition |
| Digital media player support: | Any DLNA certified device |
| Digital media file support: | • Music: MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC, AC3, FLAC, APE, OGG, VOC, AIFF, AU, MID • Video: WMV, ASF, MOV, AVI, MPEG, 3GP, SWF, FLV, RMVB, RM, RA, RAM, MP4, MPG, MPE, M2V, TP, TS, MLV, MKV, DIVX • Photos: GIF, PNG, BMP, JPG, JEPG, ICO, TIFF, DXF, WMF, EMF, PICT, EPS, CDR |
| Physical dimensions: | WxHxD: 200 x 180 x 212 mm |
| Weight: | (without HDD): 4.5 kg (with 1 HDD): 5.1 kg |
Installing the H340
Like HP, Acer have branded the initial Windows Home Server Connector installation screens, before the standard Microsoft setup wizard kicks in.
Before the home server installation is complete, you’ll need to enter your administrator’s password to start Acer’s Health & Performance Monitor add-in.
The WHS Console will then appear – and you can see that Acer have bundled McAfee’s Total Protection Service for Windows Home Server as the easyStore’s anti-virus solution.
Lights Out
Also included with the easyStore is Martin Rothschink’s Lights Out power management add-in, which provides the ability to set the home server into suspend mode and wake the system at scheduled times using a very cool calendar interface (the add-in is a free download for any home server user, by the way).
In the Lights Out settings page, you can configure the following settings:
• Client computer monitoring – Client computer monitoring is used to check periodically for active clients. When no active clients are detected, the selected action will be executed after the wait time. You can choose to disable client monitoring, put your server to suspend or hibernate mode, or shut down the server.
• Options – You can set Lights Out to wake up your home server on a configured backup time. You should enable this option when you run regular backups.
• Uptime diagram – Recorded uptimes are visualized in the uptime chart. You can choose between a history range of 2 to 14 days. When your server is always up, you can exclude the server from the chart. In the same way you can configure the display of backup times.
When the monitoring for remote access is enabled, the default action is disabled as long as a remote user is logged in. The default timeout from the home server is set to 20 minutes. Lights Out waits 3 additional minutes after timeout.
McAfee Total Protection Service
Acer are following in HP’s footsteps with the addition of McAfee’s Total Protection Service. This is provided with a free 6 month subscription, before paid anti-virus updates are required.
System Information
A comprehensive system information tab displays a wide variety of information on your new home server.
System Information supports the following features:
• Acer Aspire easyStore Home Server – Displays basic information about the home server, such as the specification of the processor and memory currently installed in the home server, BIOS version, and operating system version.
• LED Brightness – Allows you to adjust the brightness of the LED indicators on the home server.
• Remotely Wake Up Aspire easyStore Home Server – Allows you to enable or disable remote wakeup feature.
• Hardware Performance and Health Monitor – Allows you to view the performance data of the home server, and monitor the temperature, voltage and fan speed.
Hardware Performance and Health Monitor Settings
In the Hardware Health and Performance Monitor page, you can configure the following settings:
• Auto Refresh – Sets the refresh interval to tell Windows Home Server how frequently the monitoring data should be performed.
• Performance settings – Sets the performance threshold of the CPU, Memory and Storage.
• E-Mail alert setting – Specify an email address to which alerts should be sent.
• Launch SMTP setup – Configure the Simple Mail Transport setup (to configure your email)
IP Configuration Settings
The IP Configuration settings page allows you to view the home server’s current IP configuration settings or change the IP configuration manually.
Digital Media Server
A DLNA-compliant uPnP media server is also included, to allow you to play back files on the home server to a wide range of media receivers and other audio and video devices. I’d previously guessed this would be TwonkyMedia Server (as HP and Fujitsu-Siemens include) but Acer have in fact developed their own, simply called Digital Media Server.
iTunes Server
The easyStore will also appear as a network device in iTunes, courtesy of the now-obligatory iTunes Server.
One Touch USB Backup
One of the most unique features of the new Acer home server is one touch USB backup. As the manual explains, the USB backup button on the front panel allows you to backup data from a USB storage device to the home server. Windows Home Server copies all files into the Public shared folder first then classifies the files according to media type into their corresponding shared folders – namely Music, Videos, Photos. When Windows Home Server cannot determine file type, the file is automatically stored into the Others folder.
Home Server Wake on LAN
Using Lights Out, you can allow home computers to control the power state of the home server by installing a small, invisible service that sends a Wake On LAN magic packet to the home server whenever the home computer comes out of standby.
There’s a lot more to read and discover in the Acer Aspire easyStore Home Server’s manual – whilst it only has some of the media-centric features of the HP MediaSmart Server, it looks like a great package and most importantly, is being made available globally. Check out the link below to download the manual, and a big thanks to JMA for making it available.
More Info: Acer Aspire easyStore Home Server Manual Download (WGS Forums)
