From a software standpoint, MediaSmart offers a superset of the stock Windows Home Server (WHS) experience: Everything that Microsoft provides is available here as well, as you’d expect. But HP goes the extra mile by dramatically improving the out of box experience, one of the issues I highlighted in my WHS review, and adding a number of other useful features that will be valuable to enthusiasts and regular consumers alike. The end result is a server that provides all of the goodness of WHS in a package that is far more accessible to typical consumers. Let’s take a look.

Think outside the box

Setting up the MediaSmart Server is simple if time consuming. In the box, you’ll find just a few pieces: The server itself, which is disarmingly small and about the size of a six-pack of coke, a power cable for the server, an Ethernet cable, some documentation, and three setup DVDs and CDs. The server itself is a thing of beauty and worth discussing briefly: Aside from being almost comically small, it features an elegant swing out door on the front, providing easy access to its four internal drive bays. Depending on the MediaSmart configuration you purchased, two or three of these bays will be open for expansion, and you can actually hot-swap new SATA drives into the device. Yes, you can do so while it’s running. Tres elegance. Read the rest of this entry »