Alienware cans Hangar 18 HD media server before its time

It was under two years ago when we initially caught wind of Alienware's Hangar 18, and while the outfit seemed pretty bullish about the thing just 12 months ago at CEDIA, things have apparently went south. As of right now, the Hangar 18 website simply redirects back to the company's homepage, and CSRs are now informing inquiring consumers that the HTPC is simply no longer available for purchase. We know, this thing was overkill in every sense of the word, but it's not like that's stopping Niveus, Exceptional Innovation and all those other guys from making headway. So long, Hangar 18 -- we barely knew ya.

[Thanks, Aaron]

[phanbouy @ Sep 29th 2008 12:12PM]

shoulda partnered to badge it Marantz to get the audiophailes on board

[Flashpoint @ Sep 29th 2008 12:13PM]

Hanger 18 does not exist.

What you saw was simply swamp gas refracting the images of dell media servers.

[mackid105 @ Sep 29th 2008 12:21PM]

cue sad bugle music

[avester @ Sep 29th 2008 12:28PM]

...Alienware Servers , two words combined that can't make sense...

[Natedog @ Sep 29th 2008 1:36PM]

Well done on the Megadeth reference.

[Robino @ Sep 29th 2008 2:47PM]

Rust In Peace, Alienware Server :(

[jim @ Sep 29th 2008 12:49PM]

This was killed because ASUS (the maker of the motherboard for this project) stopped making that board. They (alienware) sold whatever limited stock they had, and kept some spare board for repairs.

[kal326 @ Sep 29th 2008 1:36PM]

And there is only one server motherboard maker in the world? Its not like they couldn't have found somebody else to make them if they really wanted too. Sure it would be a low volume custom order, but its not like Alienware was concerned with keeping the price down or anything.

[Chris @ Sep 29th 2008 3:44PM]

Knowing Alienware they probably arn't getting rid of it, just replacing it with Intel cpu's and better graphics. And calling it the "World's fastest HTPC"

[chance @ Sep 29th 2008 3:52PM]

if they'd offer a model without the built in amplifier and with graphics that are usually associated with "alienware" hardware, i'd buy one today.

most of us audiophiles already own an amplifier. i just need a machine HTPC with HDMI outputs...

[sr @ Sep 29th 2008 3:56PM]

All these $10, 12, 30 thousand dollar servers make me want to laugh. Sure they are tough and built to the highest standards but you could go and buy an HP Mediasmart server for $500 add $560 worth of drives and end up with 5TB of storage that has built in redundancy, serves up media with Window Media Connect or Twonky media server or Squeezecenter and backs up every computer in the house nightly. You could add another 6TB using the eSata port and a drive cage. The system is tiny, quiet and power efficient and can just sit in a basement. They are so cheap that you could run two of them in redundant operation or even for $500 just have a backup server ready that in the case of failure will take all the drives from the failed one and get your storage back up and running in about 15 minutes again. You could have 10 of those in redundant operation with 50TB of storage for the cost of one of these new-fangled overpriced servers.

[Ryan @ Sep 29th 2008 8:22PM]

The Megadeth song is much better anyways.

[Hafk @ Sep 30th 2008 12:53AM]

I would had totally bought this if it had the Megadeth discography on it already.

[Goldaar @ Sep 29th 2008 6:41PM]

Once this thing never updated itself with cable cards, or anything useful, it was doomed. This HTPC always needed cable cards, and being as expensive as it was, it should have had them.