Matt,  Appreciate the review, Very Helpful... However, I am like you I don't want just anyone browsing photos...  In you article you state:

 "The other important item to note about the Photo Viewer is that unlike Photo Webshare, albums are visible and downloadable by anyone. Gone is the ability to create logins for visitors and assign viewing permissions to specific albums, meaning anyone who stumbles on your home server URL can view whatever albums you've created in the Photo Viewer. Also gone is the ability to allow friends and family to upload photos of their own, unless you give them a full user account on your Home Server.

Is this bad? I guess that depends on your situation. Not having to create logins for everyone certainly simplifies the process of getting photos in front of friends and family. However, if you're paranoid about strangers looking at your pics or don't want Grandma Bea checking out photos from your drunken New Year's party, you'd be better off using one of the other photo sharing services. Unfortunately, using the MediaSmart Server as a hub for family and friends to their photos from a same event (say a birthday party or holiday) has also been lost in the mix."

Snapfish,flickr,picasa aren't bad but I don't want that to be my sole option either. I don't want everyone that would like to download and keep the photo to have to pay snapfish for it...Plus I don't want to have to start getting requests for photos to email the hi-res photo to them...that is why I am looking to get this box....

Any idea if there will be a way to secure this in the future? Has anyone heard ? Is it possible an Add-In may address this?  I have called HP presales and they told me what I read was wrong and HP would never release a product that acted like what I was describing....I challenged them (two reps were consulting) and then the admitted they haven't had any "training" on the new line....So, they don't have a clue to the purchasing public....

ARGH....should I buy the old line while they are still available....or should I preorder a the new line and hope HP fixes this ?? that is the question!!!

Thanks for any insight!!

Matt great review. It appears that HP is doing a good job at staying up with current trends in technology. Increasing the ram and processor and making it Mac compatable. Although I must say what drew me to having a home server to begin with is the control over who has access to my blogs, photo's, videos etc. If i just wanted my stuff out there on the internet i would have just posted it on Myspace, Facebook or other. I feel that the access control was a big push for people to purchase the hpmediaserver. The lack of control on the new Hpmediaservers i feel will be a big downfall in its sales. As far as Hardware goes the new models are great for new buyers, save people the hassle of taking the case apart to upgrade the memory and processor themselves. Sorry for the negative but i don't need a Hpmediaserver to add photos to an online site, i can do that with a computer and no Hpmediasmart server. I wonder how much these new Hpmediaservers will go for. I know i bought the one that came with 1 500 gb hd. It was more economical to buy that one for 200 dollars less than the 2 500 gb one. With 1tb harddrives going for 100-130 dollars. I was able to buy the cheaper one and two 1 tb drives for the cost of the 2 500gb drive server. And as far as upgrading the processor and memory on your own the processor only cost 50 dollars, the 2gb memory 30 dollars

Wow, this would be a perfect box for my home. Thanks for the review!

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It appears that the only difference between the 485 and 487 is one (1) 750gig HD is that correct? Assuming yes it appears that one can buy a 750 for about $80 US. Can drives be added at any time? Is there redundancy? Mirroring? Can one mix drive sizes? (say 750 and 1gig and 1.5 gig)

When you add drives do they just hot plug and the system formats them and adds them in?

Thanks for any more details.

Thanks for then comments. Wonder if the HD cache affects performance at all? I assume like speeds (7200 rpm). Mixing brands any issue? (In would doubt it)

On that basis it would appear that the #X485 would be the better choice and then add drives as space is needed.

Any thoughts on a backup for the server? Any external unit connected?

Last week we got our first HP ex485 WHS unit. We had it on back order for a few months and were very pleased to get one of the first units that our distributor received in stock. Over those same waiting months, we also accumulated four (4) Seagate 7200.11, 1.5 TB hard drives (the ones with the corrected firmware), and wanted to see what that new unit would do with a gross of 6.0 TB of drive storage. We were pleased to see that the OEM hard drive in the new ex485 was, in fact, a Seagate 7200.11 drive (750 GB), so we figured the 1.5 TB drives would work. We were correct in that assumption.

Initially we replaced only the original OEM drive with a 1.5 TB drive and restored the entire WHS system with the restore CD-ROM that was provided with the ex485 unit. The restore went flawlessly and completely installed all the HP WHS software, just as it had come from the factory. Once we initialized the ex485 and got it functioning correctly (which was a very easy task), we sequentially added each additional hard drive to the array, until all four drive bays were humming along with 1.5 TB of storage in each slot.

That was a week ago, and the ex485 hasn't skipped a beat since then. The HP tweaks to the original WHS software suite are also quite nice and very useful. I must honestly say that it will be hard to beat this new ex485 with a home built WHS unit (and I've built many of those during the past year). I'm damn impressed with this little shiny black box, and its awesome storage capacity of 6.0 TB. Try one, you'll love it!

Best regards to everyone. Ima DingBat