Video: 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