August 30th marked the 5 year anniversary of Hurrican Katrina, which devastated the city of New Orleans and its residents. And while huge disasters like Katrina seem rare, the honest truth is that there are many naturally occuring destructive forces in this world. Tornadoes, wildfires, hurricanes, house fires, lightning strikes, and floods are only the beginning; there are a seemingly unending number of things that can destroy your equipment or your entire home. 

So what do we do? We try to mitigate risk by insuring our homes and posessions against these forces. As important as that may be, unfortunately, most do very little to safeguard themselves against losing the irreplaceable - the digital memories and other important bits and bytes that make up your digital life.

We want to help change that, which is why the entire month of September will be Data Protection Month here at MediaSmarthome.com. Over the next four weeks, we'll be focusing on raising awareness about personal data protection and preservation. Join us throughout the month as we discuss every facet of data protection through articles, interviews, polls, discussions, and much more.

There's a fair number of HP MediaSmart Servers in the wild, and while most computer users have been beaten over the head with messages to protect your their PCs with anti-virus software, most often overlook protecting their Home Servers from the huge number of digital nasties out there.

McAfee is one of the oldest and most respected digital security companies in the world, and along with complete security solutions for consumer PCs and notebooks, they also have a solution for protecting Home Servers. A trial of their software is included with every HP MediaSmart Server, which can be installed at any time by visiting the settings area of the home server console.

As the number of home servers in the market increases, so does the need to protect them. McAfee wishes to be at the forefront of home server protection by improving their product offering and helping those to understand the need for home server protection. As a result, they've launched the

Things have seemed quiet over at HP on the add-in/upgrade front since they let loose the HP MediaSmart Expander for TiVo add-in, but today they've let loose a brand new add-in called "HP Easy USB Transfer" and an upgrade to the MediaSmart Expander for TiVo that adds new features and abilities.

HP Easy USB Transfer allows the contents from a USB drive to be copied directly over to the MediaSmart Server or Data Vault.  According to HP, this should be a great benefit for customers who routinely create large amounts of data, like photo and video shoots. Read more about the HP Easy USB Transfer Add-In in our full review.

Finally, the HP MediaSmart Expander for TiVo has been upgraded with the ability for TiVo owners to schedule series recordings and have them automatically transferred to the server. Until now, moving programs to the server has been a manual process.

Rumors about new HP MediaSmart Server models have been making the Internet rounds since the EX-490 and EX-495 went missing from HP's online Home and Home Office store. We typically hear rumblings about new models well before old ones disappear from the channel, so we would have been mighty surprised if HP was indeed turning new models in the very near future.

Provided HP is being honest (we think they are given the next version of Home Server is close but still not available), this doesn't appear to be anything more than a temporary stock outage at HP Home and Home Office. Certainly a bummer if you were hoping for some new hardware, but on the bright side, those with EX490s and EX495s get to sport the latest and greatest for a little while longer.

Full quote from HP after the break.

Some who have received their MediaSmart Server 3.0 Upgrade discs in the mail may have gotten a tad confused when they dropped in the Server Recovery Disc and it tried to recover their PC, and vice versa. As it turns out, some users received upgrade kits with the labels on the PC restore disc and server recovery disc swapped. Not a giant issue, per say, but a bit confusing nonetheless.

Fortunately, HP has told us they've been looking into the problem and corrected it as of March 23. Going forward they will be sending out correctly labeled discs.

Not everyone received mislabled discs. According to HP, the only mislabeled discs were North American English 3.0 upgrade discs for the EX470/EX475 series. No other models, countries, and languages were affected. 

If you already have mislabled discs, be assured nothing is incorrect with the data on them. The new discs shipping are identical to yours, only labeled the correct way. In your case, simply swap the PC Recovery Disc and the Server Recovery Disc and run the Server Recovery from the disc labeled PC Recovery and vice/versa. It would also be helpful to manually re-label the discs for future use.

HP today unveiled the all new HP MediaSmart Expander for TiVo, which allows TiVo owners to use a MediaSmart Server EX490 or EX495 to store TiVo recordings, transfer them back, play them on a PC using TiVo Desktop, as well as view what recordings are on the TiVo right from the home server console.

UPDATED: It turns out the TiVo Expander should also work fine for EX48x and EX47x customers who've purchased and installed the MediaSmart 3.0 Software Upgrade. However, this configuration is unsupported by HP, so if you have questions or issues with it, you'll need to use the forums and ask the community.

Full details in the press release below after the break. Plus, don't miss our interview with HP's Charlie Shilling, Future Product Manager for the MediaSmart Server, about the new MediaSmart Expander for TiVo.

If you're an EX470 or EX480 Series MediaSmart Server owner patiently waiting for the 3.0 software upgrade to become available, your ship has finally arrived. HP's taking orders later this week, and shipping next week. Huzzah!

Full announcement from HP below:

The 3.0 software update DVD will be available to order beginning later this week, with shipments beginning next week.  These optional updates are available to purchase for owners of our EX470/475/485/487 products who want to upgrade their servers to the latest 3.0 software that is shipping on the EX490/495 products.

Please note the previously communicated information related to these updates:

1)      The cost of the upgrade DVD has been finalized and will be US$25 or €25.

2)      These upgrades will be available as a server recovery solution.  HP recommends that you back up all server files prior to installing the upgrade.

3)      This upgrade is not recommended for EX470/475 owners who have not already upgraded their Server DRAM to 1GB as certain features will not function.

Last time we got an update on the impending 3.0 upgrade for EX47x and EX48x owners was back in December, when it was announced HP was delaying the release until February while they worked out kinks in the upgrade process introduced with Power Pack 3. 

Now that February has arrived, HPs finally broken their silence in a report to WeGotServed, indicating that the 3.0 upgrade is in the final testing stages. Along with the expected 3.0 updates from before, it also appears HP will be adding in the latest version of the PacketVideo Media Streamer (Twonky), which (hopefully) will cut down on high CPU usage. Furthermore, the upgrade process is fully compatible with Windows Home Server PowerPack 3 and Windows 7. 

In other words... shouldn't be long now, provided there are no more red flags. Stay tuned.

[Thanks, Martin]

Do you remember what it was like before you got your MediaSmart Server?  Do you loathe the idea of going back to manual backups?  Let your voice be heard!

HP's MediaSmart Server has been nominated for "Home Entertainment Device of the Year" in Engadget's prestigious 2009 awards competition. Do your part and get the HP MediaSmart Server in the winner's circle!  Voting is only open until February 20th - so don't delay!

All you have to do is click here to vote.

[Via Engadget]

HP has just issued a statement regarding availability of the long-awaited Version 3.0 software upgrade for EX470, EX475, EX485, and EX487 customers. While the upgrade was originally scheduled to hit this fall (prior to December 21st), it appears that a few glitches have cropped up in the latter stages of testing thanks, in part, to Microsoft's recently released PowerPack 3 upgrade.

Rather than release an upgrade with known issues, HP has instead opted to fix and retest these problems. As a result HP will be missing the expected "Fall" date, moving the release into February next year with a confirmed price of $25 or €25.

No doubt any additional delay certainly isn't going to make anyone happy, but we can certainly understand (and appreciate) HP's reluctance to release a problematic upgrade. In our opinion, a little extra delay is certainly more favorable than a borked MediaSmart Server. 

Thankfully, February isn't all that far down the road.