HP today confirmed that the EX495 MediaSmart Server will not be launched in the UK & Europe.
In a short statement, the company announced, “We are re-entering the UK and EMEA market with one product at this point in time, the EX490. If we are successful and the market is ready in volume for further products in range at higher/lower price points HP will look to expand the range.”
So, a definite toe in the water at this point, rather than plunging back into the European market – however, with the HP StorageWorks X510 Data Vault being so similar to the EX495 on the hardware and software front, those of you preferring the higher powered model do have choices.
Based on reports from readers, stock of both units still appears to be patchy here in the UK, although multiple retailers are taking orders.
20. October 2009 at 7:30 am
Thats not good news, guess i'll put my money back in my pocket!
Any news on the LX195, is that US only as well?
20. October 2009 at 7:41 pm
Yep – note that the comment states "higher/lower price points" – lower being the LX range. Personally, I understand the decision on the EX495 given the X510 release, but I think it was a mistake not to launch the LX over here. That said, I know a lot of work has gone in at HP to get their WHS products into Europe, so let's not knock it. Remember, the EX490 is a very similar spec as their last top of the range EX487 with better software. This is a v. cool home server!
20. October 2009 at 8:45 am
I might be missing something here – but isn't the only difference between the EX490 and EX495, the number of harddisks supplied as standard?
If so, doesn't that make the lack of the EX495 a non-issue – Buy an EX470 add an extra disk == EX495 (and probably cheaper for the same capacity).
Pity about the LX195, but I guess HP is a commercial organisation not a charity – so if they think they will get the biggest returns on just supplying the one model then that's what they will do.
20. October 2009 at 7:42 pm
Nope, please read our reviews!
20. October 2009 at 8:57 am
nope ex495 has a e5200 2.5Ghz dual core 64bit CPU
20. October 2009 at 9:58 am
How come the X510 is priced £10 cheaper than the EX490, given that it is effectively identical to the higher spec'd EX495? Would there be any downside to buying the X510 over the EX490?
20. October 2009 at 10:43 am
Good Question , why is that ???
20. October 2009 at 11:29 am
Ah – because the X510 is for businesses, that price should exclude VAT. However, certain retailers don't seem to have accounted for that, not that any of them have any stock anyway.
20. October 2009 at 12:22 pm
Any difference between ex495 and X510 ?
I've been waiting for the release of the ex495 , or should i get 1 from the States
20. October 2009 at 1:11 pm
From what I've read, nothing significant. Some wording differences within the software etc. The only thing that worries me slightly is whether any future software developments or new media features will be made available to the business platform.
20. October 2009 at 5:46 pm
I've preordered the X510 from Insight but waiting for stock
21. October 2009 at 3:46 pm
I ordered my X510 from SoftCat (sales contact Tony Kissack 01628 403476) who ordered me one via HP shipping channels (effectively importing it from the States via HP). I ordered it about a week ago and will be receving it around 5th November. Tony has tried to get hold of the EX495 but hasn't been able to do so.
26. October 2009 at 10:26 am
There's HP for ya, shooting themselves in the foot once again. Instead of offering the one desirable model for sale in a new (?) market, they offer the one nobody wants. I just helped a friend pick out a genuine boxed WHS (me and other friends to this point have only built our own WHS boxes), and I was bashing my head against a wall with the poor design of HP's home servers except the LX195 with the Atom. The others – the EX line in particular – all had power-hungry Celeron or Pentium DC CPUs, and weren't even on my radar for that point alone. We ended up settling on an Acer H340 server instead, because of its Atom CPU and low price. Yes, almost solely based on the Atom CPU. The Atom provides such a huge cut in power usage, that, through some convoluted computation, the power savings of the Atom server versus the Celeron server would actually pay for another Atom server in about a year. It's ridiculous to put a Celeron in a home server, simple as that. And it's ridiculous for HP to only put out a Celeron server if they're trying to test the market. People will buy its competitor with an Atom. Derp?