HP EX470 MediaSmart Home Server (AMD Live, Windows Home Server, 500 GB Hard Drive)

The HP Windows home server is a great product that simplifies home computer backups, access and anti-virus protection. One thing that is needed on this unit is more memory and a faster processor. This is a great solution for home users. It is a very quite pc with very low power consumption.

Unfortunately this one arrived with 4 red lights on the hard drive bays, like the 2007 Christmas review. I heard it is possibly a problem with the memory, according to one tech. HP support said to return it to the seller, who is trying to brush me off to HP. I am forced to try the Amazon A to Z guarantee, unless I want to settle for a refurbished server at a new server price. Meanwhile my hard drives are filling up; I really need this type of solution. If the seller (TheFactoryDepot) gives me what I paid for, or my money back, I might upgrade my review based on more experience with the product.

Works great, quiet. Bought with 2 640GB Seagate drives, which are cooler, quieter and less likely to die than the largest ones. I use the homeserver with Adobe Lightroom - I've redirected my Photos folder to the Server so that everything I do is backed up immediately, and i don't have to use 80+GB on my laptop for my photos.

I recently purchased an EX470 and my initial glee upon its arrival has been somewhat dampened by the fact that you cannot setup the server if you are running 64-bit Windows client PCs.

The software discs supplied by HP with the EX470 will *only* run on 32-bit Windows, and both of our PCs are running 64-bit Vista.

The Microsoft Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 adds 64-bit client support to Windows Home Server, and this is available for download from the Microsoft Web site. However, to perform the initial configuration and to install this update along with other updates from HP you will need console access to the server, and you can't access the console from a 64-bit client in order to carry out the necessary updates....

The included server restore disc (to recover the EX470 in case of a drive failure, etc.) also only works with 32-bit Windows.

Oh well, now I'm going to have to wait to borrow a laptop running 32-bit Windows from someone so that I can configure and update the EX470.....

It would all be so much easier if HP had updated ISO images available for download which contained 64-bit client software.

The other issue I have had so far is that the MAC address isn't printed on the EX470. (Along with the existing serial numbers, etc. on the bottom of the unit for instance). It would have been a lot easier to setup on my network if I knew the MAC address beforehand!!

By the way, IMHO a really good choice of upgrade/expansion drive for this unit is the Samsung HD103UJ 1TB drive (32MB cache), which currently sell for around $105. We have Samsung drives running with RAID 0 in two PCs, a Mac Pro, a Linux box, and a hardware RAID NAS device with zero problems/drive failures.

It is also possible to upgrade the memory in your EX470/EX475 MediaSmart Server, which consists of a single PC2-5300 DIMM, from 512 MB to 2 GB. [...] is an excellent site for info.

The actual server is easy to set up. One problem during the install is that you no sooner get the software set up, with accounts then you get an update notice. A service pack installs, and you do the basic setup again. It also does not like Window Live.com for an Internet access site. I finally went with TZO but had to email them to get the one free year.

Getting it to work over the Internet is a different story. Takes 3 days (?) for TZO to set up your account. I am still writing back and forth to their tech support site. When I attempt go to my HTTP://(my site).hpshare.net I get redirected to a HP Product ad site.

I have the server connected to one wired and three wireless computers. The first back-up's take considerable time. Subsequent back-ups are quicker. All of the back-ups have worked well.

My major complaints are the setting up of the photo and music sharing. The products needs a real manual. There are websites that can be gotten to from TZO, but there is a lot of searching with trial and error.

One word of caution. Don't request the trial software from Microsoft. It is included in the package and their have been reports of Microsoft attempting to bill customers who have requested, but did not use.