HP's MediaSmart Home Servers get a release date

If you're keeping abreast of the Windows Home Server proceedings (and we suspect you are) then you're probably somewhat familiar with the HP EX470 / EX475. Furthermore, If you've been eyeing the two, drive-filled towers and been hoping to know when you might get your hands on them, you may be in luck. According to reports from retailers like Amazon and PCMall, the $599 EX470 (clocking in at 500GB) and and $749 EX475 (1TB) will begin shipping on September 15th. As you'll recall, the servers rock 1.8GHz AMD Semprons and contain four drive bays, plus tout four USB ports and one eSATA port -- for additional external expansion. As the supposed launch date for WHS draws ever nearer (or further... it's hard to tell) it's at least nice to know that we'll have some options when it does eventually land.

[Via DailyTech, thanks Mark]

[Dias @ Aug 22nd 2007 6:34PM]

Pretty nice, but I've 2 questions:

- does WMS hardware specs include wireless support? Or it's just optional?
- how do you connect it to your pc (besides wireless)? It's like NAS (fast LAN connection) or just boring USB?

[Dias @ Aug 22nd 2007 6:36PM]

Ok, I see Lan connestion in screeshot above, but how my pc actually see it, like an external hd?

[David Clark @ Aug 22nd 2007 6:43PM]

If it works similarly to Windows Server 2003, you'll be able to remote into the machine and get a desktop that'll feature the very minimum of what you'd find on a fresh install of Windows. The real muscle is in a control center type of application that lets you set up drive shares, user access, etc.. From there, you can set up "shared drives" with user specific permissions and stuff like that. Therefore, what your client computer will see is an available network drive. Pretty cool.

There are some screenshots posted up on an earlier post that shows the network drive, along with the options to back up client computers (also pretty cool)

[Dias @ Aug 22nd 2007 6:55PM]

Thanks for reply

I heard that it doesn't use raid technology but something else, I wonder how it works.

Suppose that I have 2hd in my WHS: 100Gb and 300Gb; total capacity is 400GB?
And if 2nd hd (bigger one and full of data) breaks, what happens?

[Juke Box Hero @ Aug 23rd 2007 1:36AM]

@Dias

"I heard that it doesn't use raid technology but something else, I wonder how it works."

It does not use RAID. Your next questions leads into how it works...

"Suppose that I have 2hd in my WHS: 100Gb and 300Gb; total capacity is 400GB?"

Correct, it virtually merges all drives that are added, kind of like spanning dynamic drives.

"And if 2nd hd (bigger one and full of data) breaks, what happens?"

You lose any UNPROTECTED data on that drive. You can set up protected folders on the system that will replicated the data in the folders to another drive in the quasi-array. This will take away from the total available space of each drive. Using your 100GB+300GB drive scenerio, let's say you have 50GB of PROTECTED data and 100GB of UNPROTECTED data. Then you could calculate your free space like this:

(100GB - 50GB) + (300GB - 50GB) - 100GB = 200GB

Hope that makes sense...

[Dias @ Aug 23rd 2007 6:50AM]

It's clear now, thanks for explanation. :)

Btw I've read that it supports even Shadow Copy (Vista's Previous Version), so you don't have to use Vista in order to get this feature, pretty cool.

[Neal @ Aug 23rd 2007 10:08AM]

Some answer for you all -

Wireless support? Yes. The client piece that installs on the PC's to be backed up will wake up the client if it's in sleep or hibernation in order to allow the server to connect to back the data up.

How does it show on the network? Like a file server. There is the \\server\share setup for backing up. You can have a share per client.

Does it require CAL's? Nope

Is it useless for Macs? No, it works just fine for Macs - in fact you can even use it to change your patition sizes of the drive you share if you dual boot using the restore function: http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver/ - check the post talking about growing your partition on restore.

How does the data get stored on the HDDs, I heard it's not RAID? Each drive will add to the swarm of drives, it's not RAID, it's something else that is different, patent pending stuff developed in house.
*** Warning, this will get long, but has good details ***
WHS uses SiS (single instance store) which keeps the size of the backups incredibly small. In fact the MORE you backup the more efficient it is. Here's a overview of how it works:

WHS looks at raw data in 4k clusters. Any 4k cluster that is the exact same as another is only ever backed up once on the server. When WHS encounters the same data elsewhere in the same or even other backups, it merely flags that this chunk of data needs to be copied to the correct position whenever that file or client is restored. It is not uncommon to see 10+ terabytes of data backed up to less than 250G of storage space (seriously).

WHS also allows drag and drop access to files backed up individually as well as in different versions (backed up multiple times as the file was changed between backups). The drives are a large pool, there are no drive letters to confuse or allow you to forget where something is stored or backed up (whether the drives are internal or external on the WHS). When you add drives to the pool, you grow the space for storage. On the folder/file level, WHS makes sure that they are mirrored to different physical disks, so that if you remove a drive or one fails, you won't lose anything. This also mitigates the need to use like drive sizes or even understand how backing things up works. Just add drives when you need room using the simple wizard.

Likewise if you want to upgrade a drive, you can use the wizard to remove, say a 120G drive, then replace it with a 250G drive. I've seen, firsthand, WHS servers with 20+ drives, none larger than 100G (most around 60-80G in size), which actually makes for a good server for a few reasons - more drives == less single points of failure, and it makes for a nice place to retire old HDD's that still work, but are too small for your needs on a main PC.

Hope this explained some things :)

[steve @ Aug 23rd 2007 4:00PM]

What if you have 4 1TB drives in there. You make one folder and mark it protected. Put all your crap in that folder (let's say h.264 movies). What kind of capacity would it have? 2GB (because dupe 4kB of vid info is rare)? or more? Less (because of the DB overhead)

What if one of the drive dies? Can you just slot a new 1TB in and expect the partition to rebuild?

[Neal @ Aug 24th 2007 12:14AM]

Steve,
I cannot speak directly to this scenario, I have not tried it, but I would think that it would still be smaller than the original, it should be at least 20% compression at minimum. That said, the other part of your question - if you did lose a 1T drive in this scenario, the server would mark it as bad and you could swap them out as if it were RAID.

[timatl @ Aug 22nd 2007 6:43PM]

good pricing

[Fie Fie @ Aug 22nd 2007 9:52PM]

Not trying to be a pain but thought I'd mention it:

"clocking in at 500GB"

Clocking usually refers to the clock speed, cpu speed etc.. or even the time John Doe punches in with his time card.. usualy not meant for hard drive space.. unless you think it works.. =) I suppose if you meant "when the unit arrives it will have a 500GB drive".. but it's not generally used in that sense...

[Chris @ Aug 23rd 2007 9:17AM]

> "clocking in at 500GB"

it's a color commentator reference. Such as in boxing the contenders would be announced with their weight at registration, or "clock-in", such as "clocking in at 150 pounds in the red trunks is..."

in this case, it is GB, so hard disk space.

[David Clark @ Aug 22nd 2007 6:48PM]

I really would be interested to know if you're required to buy CAL's for the machine like you do the other versions of Windows Server.

[Tom @ Aug 22nd 2007 7:04PM]

Does anyone know if it can serve to your XBOX? On my current box I run the Windows Media Connect which allows for that. Does this do something similar?

[Dias @ Aug 22nd 2007 7:09PM]

Yes, it can steam video/audio content to XBox360/WMC.

[Microdot @ Aug 22nd 2007 8:08PM]

good lord i hope not. windows licensing is confusing enough to people that do it every single day... bringing in your avg jor home user, it woul dbe a nightmare.

if they do... windows home server will meet an early death. (which is fine in my book)

[skyshard @ Aug 23rd 2007 1:41AM]

no cals needed.

you can backup 10 computers automatically, so id assume if there's any limit itd be 10.. didnt try with that many though

[Dae @ Aug 22nd 2007 7:58PM]

i'm sure it will be totally useless for the macs on the network. Then again the macs will be able to utilize the network storage.

So will the OS be available as standalone software? or will i have to buy the HP server bundled with it. call me crazy but i cant justify buying a less than mediocre machine for 800 dollars.

oh well.

[Decromin @ Aug 23rd 2007 6:29AM]

according to wikipedia:

"It can also be used with Time Machine, an upcoming feature in Mac OS X Leopard. "We're a great back-end store for Time Machine," Microsoft product manager Todd Headrick told Paul Thurrott."

And yes - OEM versions of the software will be available for use on your own hardware.

[Adrian Robins @ Aug 24th 2007 4:25PM]

I'd rather have my 4tb Mediacore right next to my seat.

[randy @ Aug 22nd 2007 10:19PM]

What are the grooves for? Faux segments? Tacky.

[Sam @ Aug 23rd 2007 12:46AM]

I guess I just don't see the point. Why is this better than an external drive enclosure or a cheap older computer stuffed with hard drives?

[skyshard @ Aug 23rd 2007 1:45AM]

wikipedia says
* Centralized Backup - Allows backup up to 10 PCs,[6] using Single Instance Store technology to avoid multiple copies of the same file, even if that file exists on multiple PCs.[7]
* Health Monitoring - Can centrally track the health of all PCs on the network, including antivirus and firewall status.[7]
* File Sharing - Offers network shares for commonly used files like MP3s and videos with network-attached storage.[7]
* Printer Sharing - Allows a centralized print server to handle print jobs for all users.[7]
* Previous Versions - Takes advantage of Volume Shadow Copy Services to take point in time snapshots that allow older versions of files to be recovered.[8]
* Headless Operation - No monitor or keyboard attached to the device itself, much like a firewall or router.[7]
* Remote administration - Provides a client UI to remotely perform administrative tasks. Also allows Remote Desktop connections to the server.[9]
* Remote Access Gateway - Allows access to any PC on the network from outside the home.[9]
* Media Streaming - Can stream media to an Xbox 360 or other devices supporting Windows Media Connect.[7]
* Data redundancy - Guards against a single drive failure by duplicating data across multiple drives.[7]
* Expandable Storage - Provides a unified single and easily expandable storage space, removing the need for drive letters.[7]


the single instance store stuff looks nice, and the jbod-like behaviour also seems good. and then you get all your backup and versioning stuff (shadow copy is great), and some other media stuff, and it really isnt bad..

[Neal @ Aug 23rd 2007 10:14AM]

Actually Single Instance Store works not at the file or folder level but at the 4byte cluster level. No 4byte cluster that is the exact same will be copied more than once. So that 4byte cluster that makes up a portion of the picture of your mother will olny be backed up once, even though it might be the same data that is also in a .dll for your NIC. WHS basically runs a giant database of unique hashes it creates for every unique cluster. Once it has this in the database it just notes every place that cluster is used across all files, folders, even different clients it backs up, thereby GREATLY reducing the size of the server you need to hold all your data.

[Chris @ Aug 23rd 2007 9:20AM]

Wonder if they would consider offering a version of this with something like openfiler or one of the other premade linux or BSD based file server systems.

[Tim Ficke @ Aug 23rd 2007 4:20PM]

Why only a slow Semphron Processor?

[Neal @ Aug 24th 2007 12:14AM]

Because even that is overkill for what this does :)

[Peter @ Aug 29th 2007 10:52PM]

I was just wondering whether it would be possible to run a http, mail and ftp server from this machine. I have all the software to run the above servers already and it's currently installed on my 'server' (simply a win2000pro machine).
I understand that there will be remote desktop enable which leads me to believe i could install anything i wanted, but i'm still not 100% sure if it would work.
I just want to run a personal website from the HP MediaSmart Home Server, i also want to receive my emails from my domain and be able to access my files via FTP (which no longer seems like an issue with the features in WHS).
If anyone can clarify it would be great. Thanks.

[Dee2 @ Sep 7th 2007 10:34AM]

Quick question,

If anyone knows. Will it be possible to set up another partition for maybe XP Pro or Vista Home along? Incase i'd like to do some computing on the side.

Thanks in advance

[AJ @ Sep 9th 2007 7:49PM]

Hi,

I have the same question as peter.. will i be able to host a website off it it?

and one other thing.. I run an at home online radio station, if i use this to store all my music can i load my radio software on it?

are there any mic-headphone jacks on this server to plug in a microphone?