First Look at HP’s New Windows Home Server: EX487

HP are launching two new Windows Home Servers, the EX485 (750GB) and the EX487 (1.5TB). These are nice incremental updates to their MediaSmart range, as well as having hardware refresh HP have also updated the software adding a lot of additional features.

When you first see the box it looks very much like the existing MediaSmart Servers but under the covers that are some nice upgrades. The first thing I noticed is that the RAM had been upgraded from 512MB to 2GB which is just what is needed as with all the 3rd party apps available for Windows Home Server 512MB is on the low side especially when AV software is installed,

On the software side this is where HP have really stepped up:

There is support for backing up Apple Macs (OS X 10.5 or later) which I think is a first for an OEM to include in the box, I haven’t been able to test this but HP say it works with Time Machine

HP Media Collector: this scans the network for media files and then consolidates them back on to the Home Server. Photos, music and videos all get copied back to the home server and shared out, this is great when you have media files scattered all over the network and want them back in one place.

HP Photo Publisher: is a services to enable publishing of pictures online to services like Snapfish, Facebook, Flickr and Picasa. Personally I use Windows Live Photo Gallery for this but its a nice addition.

Online backup to Amazon S3: this enables you to backup to Amazon’s S3 cloud storage services so it’s great for off site backups of your critical files. This good idea but I would have preferred the storage to be bundled with the Home Server and not an extra chargeable servers. I am surprised that HP don’t offer a free basic services instead of leaving you to sort out your own S3 account.

Another interesting addition is a Sleep Mode, you can set the box to sleep between certain times and wake up to do backups which is a good idea if you are worried about the power consumption of a Home Server being left all the time.

TwonkyMedia is bundled with the box. This is a UPNP server that adds additional features to the standard Window Home Server offering and seems to replace PVConnect, so far I can’t see any real differences between the two addins.

McAfee Total Protection Services is also bundled, I don’t really bother with AV software on my box but I know some people like it and with the server having 2GB it should be able to handle it better than the 512MB boxes

Overall I would say it’s a nice progression of HP’s MediaSmart range and improves and some key areas from old model .

Here are some of the specs:

• Intel® Celeron™ 2.0 GHZ Intel 64-bit Processor

• 2GB of DDR2 DRAM

• 750GB (EX485 – $649) or 1.5TB (EX487 – $799)

This video is a quick look at some of the features of the unit

Watch via Direct Download (WMV or M4V), Watch via Youtube