Niveus Storage Server - Cargo Edition: 16TB, Windows Home Server-based

Earlier this year, Niveus Media unveiled its 2TB and 4TB Storage Servers. Today, those are looking mighty anemic. Here at CEDIA, the outfit has just taken the wraps off of its Niveus Storage Server - Cargo Edition, which gets powered by Windows Home Server and features up to 16TB of space. Designed to be the "ultimate add-on" for Niveus Movie Library, this bugger should hold even the most robust HD movie collection -- at least for awhile. The unit itself is housed in a 3U, rack-mountable chassis and provides scalability for users to expand storage from 4TB right on up to 16TB. Pricing remains a mystery right now, though it will be available in Q4. Full release is after the break (but you already knew that, didn't you?).

Gallery: Niveus Storage Server - Cargo Edition: 16TB, Windows Home Server-based

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INTRODUCING THE NIVEUS STORAGE SERVER – CARGO EDITION, POWERED BY WINDOWS HOME SERVER

Store and protect unlimited HD content with up to 16TB of scalable storage, remote accessibility, and seamless integration with the Niveus Movie Library.

Denver, CO – CEDIA Expo 2008 – September 4-7 – Booth #850 – Niveus Media introduces the Niveus Storage Server – Cargo Edition, a powerful storage device based on the Microsoft Windows Home Server platform, designed for the custom install channel. Featuring up to 16TB of scalable storage, Cargo provides a seamlessly integrated and flexible storage solution for the perpetually growing HD digital content market.

As Niveus continues to enhance movie integration with the increasing functionality of the Niveus Movie Library movie management interface and availability of VideoGiants Collections premium movie packages, it has become essential to offer a robust storage solution that can house a user's expansive HD movie collection. Cargo is the ultimate add-on to the Niveus Movie Library, enabling secure storage of thousands of movies, complete with expanded metadata and high-resolution cover art.

"To support the massive amounts of content that the Niveus Entertainment System accommodates, we needed to develop a larger storage device," states Tim Cutting, CEO and Co-Founder, Niveus Media. "With Cargo, our customers will be able to store large collections of their favorite movies, television, music, and photos. Additionally, with the host of data protection features built into the Windows Home Server platform, these collections are now protected from data corruption and personal loss."

"At CES in 2002 I ran into this startup company off in the corner named Niveus. After chatting with them, it was clear to me that before long they'd be more than a startup," said Charlie Kindel, General Manager of Windows Home Server at Microsoft Corp. "They have proven me right with their success, and I'm extremely happy they are now coming to market with a home server based on Windows Home Server."

Cargo is housed in a custom-designed, 3U rack-mountable chassis, measuring 18.5" in depth and representing the most compact storage server in the custom electronics industry. Featuring a unique hinge-based front panel that enables easy serviceability and storage upgrades without removing the device from the rack, Cargo provides impressive scalability, allowing users to expand their storage capacity from 4TB, to 8TB, to 16TB. If 16TB is simply not enough, additional Cargo storage servers can be added, enabling a modular upgrade path for limitless storage and straightforward management of all content residing on the network.

Presenting improved remote capabilities, Cargo allows users to easily access and monitor the server and stored content from virtually anywhere (vacation home, office, relative's home, etc.) through any Internet-enabled computer, using a personalized web address.

Seamlessly working behind the scenes to protect valued digital assets, Cargo provides an image-based, scheduled backup of the media server (and other computers on the network, if desired), ensuring that files and folders are duplicated across multiple hard drives. In the event that one hard drive fails, data is easily recovered. With Cargo harnessing the bulk of the storage, the Niveus media server remains optimized to deliver superior audio and video performance throughout the home.

The high-capacity and superior performance of Cargo required a hard drive that could provide reliable quality high-definition video and near silent operation. To deliver on these expectations, Niveus has selected the Seagate" Pipeline HD™ hard drive as the storage solution of choice due to its optimum HD performance and exceptionally well-rated acoustics. The Windows Vista certified Seagate" Pipeline HD™ hard drive is designed for the HD video Niveus customers will enjoy.

"Seagate has designed the Pipeline HD product specifically for the type of scenarios in which Niveus is using our drives. Seagate's Pipeline HD drives deliver the reliability, capacity and performance that customers of media servers insist upon," said Pat King, senior vice president of Seagate's Consumer Solutions Division. "Optimized for HD video and superior acoustics, Seagate's Pipeline HD drives are a good match for Niveus' demands for quiet and robust digital media solutions. Seagate is proud to be Niveus primary hard drive supplier."

Cargo can be easily integrated into any home network using Universal Plug and Play for playback with any UPnP-compliant devices (audio systems, TVs, etc).

Cargo will be available in Q4 2008.

[GamerJunkie @ Sep 4th 2008 12:07PM]

Terrible waste of hardware running on Windows, should be using Linux with a customized UI.

[Zeus.:God @ Sep 4th 2008 12:26PM]

God... Even before I clicked the comments button, I knew there would be a comment like this...

There is nothing wrong with Windows server, especially for a storage server.

[Brendan @ Sep 4th 2008 12:38PM]

Why should a company like Niveus spend their time making a customized UI and whatever other back end services might be required when Windows Home Server exists today and works pretty damn well?

[E71 @ Sep 4th 2008 1:41PM]

"pretty damn well"...

LOL

Let's get one thing straight, Servers = Linux territory. Desktops = Windows/Mac territory.

[jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj @ Sep 4th 2008 2:25PM]

@e71

OK, but just cause you say so.

[Brendan @ Sep 4th 2008 2:18PM]

@E71

Lemme know when there exists a Linux based product on the market that is just as easy to use and just as powerful (single instance backup, optional per share duplication, easy restore process) as Windows Home Server and I'd be happy to look.

And no... saying "take x, y, z and install them on foo" or even "Well the ____ distro can do some of that" isn't much of an option when competing against a product you can go to your local electronics store and fine, bring home, unbox (no server software installation required), plug into your network, install a bit of software on each of your client PCs and just have work.

[paul-engadget @ Sep 4th 2008 4:40PM]

windows server, is that the same product that randomly corrupted or lost people's files, and took months to fix? if so, why do you need so much storage space, since windows will automatically delete stuff for you and ensure you never run out of space :-)

[Phoenix @ Sep 4th 2008 7:10PM]

Finally! I've gone through about two dozen of these engadget things in a row and this is the first that's really drool-worthy. I love the scalability of them. It's a lot like the IBM Blade server but better because of the design of the actual package and also the capacity. Unfortunately I'm too damned poor to buy them... >_

[Greyscale Eusebio @ Sep 7th 2008 3:31AM]

What I'd do is load it up with linux, mt-daapd (DAAP music sharifier), samba (Windows network sharing) and fuppes (Talks to the xbox and transcodes everything to wmv for the xbox to play). Job done, as far as I'm concerned. This is assuming it doesn't have an cheapo CPU inside it, but given it was running WHS it must have had some poke to heft that thing around.

[StalematE @ Sep 4th 2008 12:25PM]

yes... but can it play doom?

[RogueSpear @ Sep 4th 2008 12:25PM]

Like sticking a Ferrari engine in a Chevy. Just imagine losing ~15GB of data :P

[rock99rock @ Sep 4th 2008 1:58PM]

If John Cusak can stick a Ferrari engine in a shitty boat and win the regatta, then i'm all for it.

[giyad @ Sep 4th 2008 3:48PM]

@rock99rock

what are you talking about...

[rock99rock @ Sep 4th 2008 5:33PM]

google is your friend

[Rob @ Sep 4th 2008 12:31PM]

WHS is great for music, photos, and systems backups. But, when it comes to video, it's a bit mediocre. Sure it works great with making those video files available to other PCs, including Macs. But, it falls to the ground when dealing with the 360 and the PS3, which is probably a big magnet for buying WHS. My PS3 recognizes none of the videos, while the 360 only recognizes WMV and Dvix files. I'm aware of the WMP11 and other workarounds. But, I don't want to deal with that. I think MS should invest more time and effort into fixing this major shortcoming of an otherwise great product.

[Law @ Sep 4th 2008 12:49PM]

Dont you mean the shortcomings of the Xbox and PS3?

[Rob @ Sep 4th 2008 12:52PM]

@ Law:
Either way. Considering that WHS and the 360 are MS products, you'd think they'd work more in harmony. I'm not interested in pointing fingers. I'm more interested in getting WHS and the PS3 and 360 to recognize video files more efficiently. I'm very pleased with WHS's performance, but not quite enthusiastic as to how it has problems with the videos.

The irony of it all is that XBMC recognizes them all. So "Law" you may have a point after all.

[Pete Steege @ Sep 4th 2008 3:12PM]

Agreed - this is like mix-and-match componentry for high-end entertainment. A do-it-yourself Kaleidascape.

[yaksplat @ Sep 4th 2008 2:08PM]

WHS serves media up perfectly to a 360 in dvr-ms format. If ever needed in the future, the dvr-ms can easily be converted to mpeg2 and then to whatever you could possibly need from there. It's easy enough for my 2 year old to understand how to serve up a movie.

[Rob @ Sep 4th 2008 2:37PM]

@yaksplat:
Keep in mind, however, that the world uses more than just MS's codecs and/or DRM formats. It'd be great if it recognized H.264 and MPEGs. But it doesn't, and that's pretty weak for, again, and otherwise great OS. Considering that WHS costs more than XP-Pro, MS should put more effort into it.

[vypergts @ Sep 4th 2008 3:40PM]

@Rob
Codec support (or lack thereoff) is based entirely on the console not WHS. WHS is an operating system that supports any codec you can normally download on a PC. It's the 360 that's missing the pieces and BTW does support H.264 as of the last update. And you're wrong about the price too. It's only $10 more than XP Pro/Vista Business and $20 LESS than Vista Ultimate. The cost is appropriate in my opinion, for what you get.

[LondonConsultant @ Sep 4th 2008 12:54PM]

I'm waiting for the SSD version...

[atbnet @ Sep 4th 2008 3:04PM]

I couldn't even imagine filling 16TB of space. Though I am making quick work of my 3.5 TB, that 8TB model looks appealing.

[giyad @ Sep 4th 2008 3:52PM]

you're already at 7TB if you do a RAID 1 configuration to mirror the drive, which would be smart considering you have 3.5 TB that you definitely don't want to lose...

[Cal @ Sep 4th 2008 4:01PM]

16 gigs... thats a lot of porn lol

[Cal @ Sep 4th 2008 4:01PM]

i meant terabytes

[barry99705 @ Sep 4th 2008 6:57PM]

Does it still corrupt your files or did they fix that? I'd just throw server 2003 on there if I was to actually use a windows file server. I'd look neat next to my G5 file server.

[Tony @ Sep 4th 2008 9:09PM]

>giyad @ Sep 4th 2008 3:48PM
>@rock99rock
>what are you talking about...

Giyad, maybe you are to young to seen One Crazy Summer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=narivgYQJVE
At 6:40

[linuxamp @ Sep 4th 2008 11:57PM]

Isn't "Windows home rack server" sort of an oxymoron? Don't get me wrong, I'd love a server cabinet in my home but it's still pretty rare at this time and if someone is hard core enough to have a server cabinet would they actually choose Windows home server?

[mopo @ Sep 5th 2008 12:19AM]

ive got a 7.5tb server... except i use server 2003 sp2. id rather move flexibility. transfer speeds between it and vista are kind of lacking though.

[Lina @ Sep 5th 2008 2:24AM]

I have an up to 4TB HomeServer and i love how versatile it is. You can even install additional addins like disk management or Grid Junction http://www.gridjunction.com