podcast
HDTV and Home Theater Podcast #385 - HP MediaSmart Server LX195
Today's Show:
Imagine with me, if you will, a day when a small box no bigger than a standard dictionary will be able to hold as many pictures as you can ever take, as many songs as you could ever listen to and a ton of movies and video as well. That day has come, and HP calls it the MediaSmart Server LX195. We got a chance to play around with one, and really liked it.
HP MediaSmart Server LX195
(Buy Now $499)Specs:
- Microsoft Windows Home Server
- Intel 1.6 GHZ Atom Processor 230
- 1GB DDR2 DRAM
- 1 X 640 GB SATA 7200 RPM
- 4 USB 2.0 ports
- Expandability limited only by drive sizes - Assuming 1 TB drives, total capacity (internal and external) = 5 TB
- 4" x 8" x 8"
- Whisper Quiet (25 degrees C < 25 dba at one meter)
Set-up
In all honesty, it took us two LX195s before we could get it up and running. But since we get demo units, we prefer to blame the problems with the first unit on the previous reviewer. That's allot easier to do than admit we were only seeing a flurry of id10t errors.The second unit was a snap to set up. It requires a hard-wired connection to your Ethernet network, but with that and a power cord, it's completely installed. Hit the power button, it gets an IP address from your router and you're off to the races. You use any standard browser to connect to the server and download the software. It takes about 15 minutes to download, install and configure before you're ready to use it. But it's all very simple and wizard driven.
All you have to do is turn on the features you want to use and set a few schedules for when the unit should run backups or aggregate media. It's actually really easy.
Use
Once you have it setup, you simply pop open the software and configure it to do whatever you want it to do. It is primarily designed to backup all the computers on your network and share all your media files in one central location.Digital Media
HP tells us that the MediaSmart server was designed for digital media from the ground up. It allows you to access your media anywhere on your home network or even away from home with any Internet-connected computer. So you can stream music, watch movies and show off your photos anywhere, anytime.It also includes TwonkyMedia as a DLNA server, so you can stream movies and music to your TVs using any DLNA player like the Xbox 360 or PlayStation3. If you're more of an iTunes user, the MediaSmart Server also includes a Server for iTunes. This server allows you to stream your music and playlists to computers that are running iTunes, or compatible devices - including protected content.
Here's the cool part, the LX195 considers every drive attached to it to be part of one big "storage pool." So as you run out of space, you simply add another drive and you don't need to make any other configuration changes. Media can span multiple drives, but still be accessible through one shared folder.