It's undeniable - the world is experiencing a "media explosion."  In fact, the research firm Parks Associates estimates that the average broadband household will see its digital media storage needs grow to nearly 900GB by year-end 2012!

Those are some pretty crazy numbers, but with media streaming, digital music, and the need to access files from anywhere, are driving the ever growing digital household.  

Every family will need to protect their precious work and personal documents, timeless memories in digital photos and movies, as well as their music and video collections.  In addition, given the rising popularity of the Mac OS X operating system, many will need a solution that works in a household with both Mac and Windows based computers.

Even though the HP MediaSmart server is based on the Microsoft Windows operating system, it's got many features that support Mac OS basec machines.  We'd like to help you learn the differences between using the MediaSmart on a Mac and on a PC, as well as help you leverage its features in your mixed OS household.

An Overview of the HP MediaSmart Server

The HP MediaSmart Server protects and shares a household’s digital content—giving connected families
an easy to use, central repository for their digital photos, music, videos, and documents.

• Support for households that have a mix of Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X computers.
• An automatic backup process for Windows PCs and Apple Macs on the home network.
• Remote access to media and files with an easy-to-use, browser-based interface. With proper authorization, a remote user can log into their home system and perform functions as if they were sitting at their computer. 
• A simple photo management and sharing tool that lets users share their photos directly from the HP MediaSmart Server or through popular photo sharing websites like Snapfish™, Facebook®, and Picasa™ Web Albums.
• A way to conveniently stream photos, music and videos to PCs, Macs, and TVs using a gaming console (like Xbox 360 & PlayStation®).  Furthermore, users can enjoy photos and music—at home or at work— with remote media streaming to any Internet-connected computer. 
• A Media Collector that automatically collects media files from PCs on the home network and organizes them on the server. 
• A way to serve up iTunes music—any computer system on the network that runs iTunes can access music on the HP MediaSmart Server as an iTunes shared library. 
• A way to transparently duplicate selected folders on separate disk drives to help protect against a hard disk drive failure.  Plus, it’s easy to add storage as needs grow.

Comparison of the MediaSmart Server's Features on Mac and PC

Here's an easy to read chart showing the differences between the functionality of the MediaSmart Server on Macs vs. PC's.  You will find that while you need a Windows based PC to install the server and complete administrative functions, that many of the functions are accessible to Macs as well.

Click on the image to view the chart.

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