Lights Management for Windows Home Server 2011 is a driver that powers the LED drive indicator lights on legacy (WHS v1) OEM hardware that has been upgraded to Windows Home Server 2011.

Compatible hardware includes the HP MediaSmart Server EX48x and EX49x series as well as the HP Data Vault X510 and Lenovo D400, Acer Aspire easyStore Home Server H340, H341 and H342.

What’s new in v1.06?

• Support for Acer H341 and H342. Please do some tests and report any issues.
• Disk light status can be changed in the configuration file. This is particularly useful for users of DrivePool, DriveBender, RAID arrays and drives without shares when the user does not want a blinking aqua LED.
• Removed some unnecessary DLL’s from the setup.

HP have just released a major update to their MediaSmart Server iStream application for iPhone. The free app, available from the iPhone’s app store, allows the browsing and playback of music, video and photos directly from the HP MediaSmart Server to the handset.

Whilst there is some great new features in the update, including photo uploading to the home server, support for Spanish and Japanese languages, a new cover flow mode for music and improved searching, the video streaming over mobile networks has been removed – only wi-fi streaming us now available. A feature “request” from users or the mobile networks?…..

You can pick up the upgrade now from the iPhone App Store.

iStream 2.0.50 Changes and New features:

Performance improvements:
A more responsive user interface when starting large videos, improved music streaming, and faster browsing through the lists of items on the server.

New languages:
- Spanish
- Japanese

Music + Videos + Photos:
- Search: Search for an item by name within any list under Music, Videos or Photos. Click the search button (magnifying glass in the lower left area) and type the characters contained in the item you’re looking for.

Photos:
- Send up photos via email.
Instructions: Under Photos, go to a list view or view an individual photo. Then click on the action button (circle with arrow) on the lower left. Select the action sheet menu item “Send Photo”.

Limitations: up to 5 photo attachments per email; the size of the photo attachments has to be less than 9 MB. The attached photos will be resized to 1024 pixel for the longest side if they are bigger than that.

Requirements: Email account needs to be setup on the device.

Music:
- Cover flow mode when viewing a list of albums or playing a song; to activate turn device into landscape mode.

Videos:
- Video playback issues with iPhone OS 3.0 or higher were fixed; video playback performance has been improved.

- Video playback is not allowed when connected via cellular networks to reduce bandwidth requirements; Video playback over Wi-Fi is still allowed.

- Videos are filtered to show only videos converted with mq[2] or Mobile[3] Video Converter profile.

[2] = if connected to a HP MediaSmart Servers running software version 2.5
[3] = if connected to a HP MediaSmart Servers running software version 3.0

It’s taken a while, but Windows Home Server has its first truly global player. The clumsily named Acer Aspire EasyStore Home Server is shortly due to arrive in North America, Europe and Asia (in slightly different configurations) bringing the World’s number three manufacturer into the ring to kick off a scrap with the World’s number one, HP (Dell are distracted somewhere else launching ridiculously priced laptops). Given Acer’s reputation for low-price, well-featured hardware it’s no surprise to see their debut home server will launch at just $399 (with an estimated UK street price of £368), which brings keen pricing and strong competition into the category for the first time.

With HP’s decision to restrict the latest MediaSmart Server to North America, many prospective buyers will be keen to take a look at what the easyStore gets you for your money – in many countries, it is likely to be the first OEM-built home server to hit the market, so it’s an important release not just for Acer, but also for Microsoft and the home server category as a whole. Our review hardware, the European model, arrived last week, so let’s take a look to see how it measures up.

The Beauty Parade

Before we kick off the review, enjoy the following press shots of Acer’s debut home server. The model hasn’t changed in the time we saw it debut at this year’s CES in January.

What’s in the Box?

The easyStore is presented in a colourful (the black design with the rainbow device reminds me of the old (and retro-cool) ZX Spectrum branding) square box with a top handle to help you transport it out of the store to home. The rear of the box has a cartoon to help bring the capabilities of the home server to life, and you’ll find easily understandable networking information on either side. So far, so friendly.

In the package, you’ll discover the following:

• Acer Aspire easyStore Home Server H340
• Ethernet Cable
• Power Connector
• Installation CD, Home Computer Restore CD and Home Server Recovery DVD
• Quick Start Guide (English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese & Chinese
• Warranty Information

Acer do pack a full user guide with the easyStore, but it’s a digital file held on the installation CD.

Looks like the new HP MediaSmart Server started shipping today!

We’ve had reports from readers who ordered their units from hp.com that they received their shipping emails this morning.

The first units should be arriving by Wednesday – if you’re one of the first to get yours, let us know what you think of it!

Alex Kuretz over at mediasmartserver.net has the lowdown on a software update for the HP MediaSmart Server (EX470/475).

The update brings some minor improvements and bug fixes to the home server, and now includes the ability to manually rollback the update if there’s an issue.

Check out Alex’s post for more.

More Info: mediasmartserver.net

You know, it’s funny – I caught up with a couple of people from the Windows Home Server team yesterday morning at CES about various things including the fact that TwonkyMedia really needed to release their TwonkyMedia Server to all Windows Home Server owners. (Currently, the add-in is only available to HP and Fujitsu-Siemens SCALEO owners – everyone else has the complexity of using the standard Windows edition).

Not sure if the guys over at TwonkyMedia were eavesdropping, because this was just announced in their forums:

We have a special version of TwonkyMedia that runs as an Add-in on WHS. Currently it’s only available when you buy an HP MediaSmart server, but we’re hoping to offer this to all WHS users — as soon as it’s properly tested…. We understand that many of your have built your own Windows Home Servers and plan to sell a version designed for you guys as well. I don’t have an ETA yet, and won’t have one for at least a week because I’m at CES all this week.

Great news – looking forward to giving it a try-out.

If you read our review of the HP MediaSmart Server and are thinking about buying one, make sure you get yours first!

The don’t ship until February in the USA, but you can place your pre-order today over at Amazon.com – the 750Gb EX485 is now available to pre-order at the link below for $569.99.

Pre-order: HP EX485 MediaSmart Home Server

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

Whilst over the past few days, we’ve seen a lot of new NAS hardware announced here at CES, the good news for Windows Home Server enthusiasts is that three new hardware partners will be releasing hardware for the platform in the first half of 2009. Let’s take a look at what’s coming:

Acer Aspire easyStore Home Server

The Acer Aspire  easyStore Home Server will run on an Intel Atom 230 processor, with 1Gb of RAM on board and by the looks of things has 4 hot-swappable internal drive bays. 640Gb of storage is included along Anti-virus protection from McAfee Total Protection Service (free for first 6 months) is confirmed for the product and Acer also plan to include add-ins to enable easily copying data from external USB hard drives, a Power Saver Scheduler and a DLNA compliant media streaming server (likely to be TwonkyMedia Server, I guess).

Shuttle SH-4500 & SH-K4800 Home Server

Two models will be released – a basic, single drive 500Gb model (SH-4500)and an alternative 500Gb with hot swap capability. Both units have space for a second internal hard drive and can be expanded externally thanks to 4 USB 2.0 ports.

VIA NSD7800 Home Server

мебели

VIA Technologies will be releasing a mammoth 8 drive home server, making it the largest available on the market, providing up to 12Tb of storage for your home.

I’ll be working on getting a lot more information on these new home servers tomorrow here at CES, so keep an eye on the site. But it’s great to see new manufacturers supporting Windows Home Server which, along with the release of the new HP MediaSmart Server and upgrades planned for the Fujitsu-Siemens SCALEO Home Server mean that there’s going to be a very strong WHS line-up for 2009.

I’m spending the weekend getting prepared to travel out to Las Vegas on Wednesday for the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show. This is where thousands of manufacturers show off the new products they have in the pipeline for the coming year.

In terms of the home server world, I’m not anticipating any major news other than HP showing off their new MediaSmart Server, but I’ve been wrong before, so key an eye on the site just in case.

I have a packed schedule of meetings with a variety of companies, including both the Windows Media Center and Home Server teams, Cisco, Sonos, Iomega, VIA, SanDisk and D-Link so I’m looking forward to bringing you news of what they have planned for 2009, as well as other interesting products I spot on the show floor.

If you’re an exhibitor at CES who has a product you think our readers would be interested in, then use the contact form to get in touch and we can catch up.

Experience from last year suggests that trying to find time for regular posting during the show is very difficult indeed, so updates may be a little erratic. I’m hoping a new netbook (Samsung NC10) will make life a little more easy publishing posts from around the show.

To keep up to date with what’s happening whilst I’m at CES, subscribe to We Got Served’s Twitter feed and I’ll be posting updates there from Wednesday through Saturday.

If you’ve been scratching your head today wondering exactly how the new HP MediaSmart Server supports Apple Macs, and how Mac support differs from support for Windows PCs, HP have today published a (rather glossy) whitepaper entitled, “Managing a Digital Lifestyle in a Mixed OS Environment”.

It’s a good read and provides a good overview of what’s available in the new Encore systems.

More Info: Managing a Digital Lifestyle in a Mixed OS Environment (PDF)

With the announcement of HP’s new EX485 & EX487 today, bringing a new hardware spec and a raft of new add-ins, the question on everyone’s lips has been whether HP will release any of the new applications for existing HP MediaSmart Server owners.

The answer to that question is….. YES!

Without going into specifics, a spokesperson for HP today confirmed that some of the features of the new models will indeed be made available for existing owners, and a search of HP’s new MediaSmart Server microsite revealed the following nugget:

So, whilst we’re waiting for a final and full list of what features will be made available in a software update, it certainly looks like Mac support will be coming to existing HP MediaSmart Server EX47 and EX475 owners.

Update: HP have now confirmed that both Mac Backup and Online Backup, powered by Amazon S3 are the two features which will be made available for existing HP MediaSmart owners. Timing is TBC.

Hats off to HP for looking after their early adopters.