First off I think the upgrade should be free to legacy users who supported this product from day 1.

Second, if the upgrade requires a factory restore and does not upgrade the existing system then I am pretty certain I will not be upgrading.

I imaine that this DVD upgrade is being launched form a client?

How else would it be launched since the MediaSmart servers do not have a DVD drive or do they expect people to shell out for an external as well?

While I am very excited to here about the upgrade being made available I am quickly brought down to earth with the thought of a factory restore.

Some of us are using our servers with a custom setup. We now have to reconfigure everything if they can't nail this to the wall? ANd we pay for it nonetheless?

Doesn't seem fair.

I have an EX 475 and have had it since day one.I also do not think that the legacy owners should have to pay for the upgrade as BigJonson so aptly stated. I am not in favor of the factory restore possibility and I really like the Photo Webshare feature and I will probably NOT be upgrading my system.

It is really a shame that the ones that have supported HP since the beginning seem to taking this one on the chin.

Oh well it certainly is not fair.

How this is "Unfair" is beyond me. You purchased a product 2 years ago, and you have an OPTION to upgrade to the latest version for a nominal price and thats unfair? It was certainly what you were looking for when you purchased it or else you wouldnt have spent the money, did you purchase it thinking any upgrades that come out im getting for free? Do you get a new version of Windows for free every time they come out with a new one? I was an early adopter and still own my EX47X and have been pleased with its performance but would like to upgrade to the 3.0 software and have upgraded the RAM in preparation for it, while it would be nice to get the upgrade for free I do not mind paying the $25 to have my Server an extra 2 years before people purchasing theirs now with 3.0 included.

Egil said: I have the EX475, and I dont mind paying $25 for the 3.0 upgrade. Thanks HP! I do look forward for some of the updates, but don`t want to loose the Photo Webshare feature.. Do anyone know if there is an alternative to the Photo Webshare?

I have an EX485 I purchased in January. Except for a few add-ons I can easily re-install, I have very little data on the server that I don't already have on my main desktop PC (used to double as a server of sorts) and I think the $25 fee is definitely reasonable. I would upgrade right now if I could get it. I wish they would make it available to folks who don't mind doing the factory reset. Based on the news release above it seems the delay is all related to finding a way to avoid the factory reset.

I'll take the what and see approach. Full restore would be very time consuming. Not to mention I have no place to "save" the data I would have to restore. That's why I have the server. Cost is reasonable.

I've got an EX475, and will be upgrading to v3.0,I dont use photo webshare.

So long as it's not more than $25, then I see that as fair.

Whether the 3.0 upgrade DVD is made available for free, $25 or $100 is irrelevant if the upgrade fails and ends up destroying several terabytes of precious data. That's my one and only concern. Since I first purchased the EX470, my " media jukebox" project has expanded to a sixteen-drive, 16 TB (8TBs x 2) configuration, with a fully loaded server, a Sans Digital TR4M eSATA port multiplier box and two Sans Digital TR4U USB towers. There is no simple or quick way to move or duplicate this amount of data, which took many, many hours to rip and upload from the over 5,000 CD and DVD discs in my collection, in addition to hundreds of digitized LPs from the vinyl era, which are additionally backed up onto CD-Rs. With RAM upgraded to 2GB and a more recent eSATA driver, my "old" EX470 system runs rock steady. I would be loath to have that change or to have to start reloading my media library all over again because of inadequately tested 3.0 upgrade software.

Related to this is the unresolved issue of how to upgrade to a new home server model from an old one. It should really be as simple as sliding out the hard drives from the old box, popping them in the new one and then upgrading the operating software on the primary drive. It isn't. It requires starting from zero with a factory reset and reformatting every "new" drive added, destroying what was already on them. In my view, home servers will never catch on with the general public with an upgrade process so tortuous and inherently risk-prone. A factory reset is not an upgrade. - it's a lobotomy.

In my view, the HP 3.0 software upgrade isn't that compelling in its own right, except as a down-payment on ongoing software improvements, of which many more are needed. For example, it is ridiculous that we need the intercession of a separate Vista (now Windows 7) PC to use the Windows Media Center features of the HP MediaSmart Connect x280n (or other extender), since in non-Windows Media Center mode it can access the very same data off the server directly. So why doesn't Windows Media Center run directly off the HP MediaSmart server? Why am I able to play ripped DVDs stored on my MediaSmart server on any PC in the house but not through the HP MediaSmart Connect? I realize that HP no longer makes or supports its media extender but the failure to support the world's most common video file structure, the only format which my old Samsung DVD recorder records in, doomed that product from the outset. I still use MediaSmart Connect to stream music (Windows 7 Media Center is quite an improvement in this regard), but it's forced me to move a media PC into the living room in order to stream movies with IFO menu navigation enabled. In short, the ability to convert DVD files into some other video format in 3.0 is a complete non-starter. I want and expect to be able to play DVD files natively. There are other media servers that claim they can do this. If so, that's an upgrade path worth taking.

I have had my EX 485 for 2 months now and it has not met expectations by any means.

Serves files slower than the old G4 Mac Mini (using USB drives as storage) that it was supposed to replace. (am still using as my primary server on account of lack of confidence in the Ex 485)

Remote access crashes every week or two requiring manual local intervention to restart. When it does work, it is slower than molasses, essentially useless. I even tried increasing my upload bandwidth to 1.5 gigs from 300 mbs using ISP upgrade and it did not show any improvement!

Still have not figured out how to move terabytes of data onto it without using sloooow ethernet.

Unable to do much at all with it using my Macbook Pro.

Even suggesting the idea that a software update could put your data at risk is beyond my comprehension.

Noisy POS fans too.

So if they fixed it, for $25 would be worth recovering what has so far been a bad investment - a very immature product, evidenced by the frequent hardware updates and infrequent software updates.

The last hardware update (Gen 3) was actually quite minimal and I can't help but wonder why a software update for Gen 2 would take so long.

HP has to understand that a product in a segment like this needs to build a critical mass to become successful. When they abuse the early adopters and provide such infrequent fixes to blatant defects, I am expecting an erosion in the existing user base well before any critical mass develops for them.

So do I dump now and save $25/possibly further time wasted and frustration or pay the $25 and invest the time to see if this project can be salvaged?

Frankly Gen 3 does not fix the inability to hook up a USB hard drive and transfer large volume data onto or off of it. For me, I am thinking that this is still a terminally serious defect.

Yes, I will definitely upgrade.
I only recently purchased my EX470, and I was initially disappointed to discover so many of the things I took for granted that a WHS would do automatically required 3rd party software to accomplish. After installing that 3rd party software, I was angred to discover so much of it did not work.

So, as I started to look into upgrading my server, I initially read HP would void my warranty for doing simple things like adding memory. Lastly, I read they were dropping support for the 470 in software upgrades. My ownership experience was becoming more like the ownership of a gaming console than a server or PC. What PC or server warranty is voided by adding memory or that, less than 2 years on the market, becomes dead to the manufacturer?

Now, as long as HP makes the upgrade reasonably priced, I will not only add the 3.0 upgrade, but I will also add memory and a faster processor. The server comes in an attactive, petite package, but performance in the 470 package was not only an after-thought, but it seems, a disregarded topic.

Rhanson84 said: Matt, Thank you for setting that straight, I was thinking many of the same things you stated in response to Guidos comments. I have had my EX470 since it was first released and although there is room for improvement indeed, for a personal home server I think it delivers on most of what it promises. It seems as though many of these people are looking for full blown servers at a fraction of the price and are disappointed when they realize they bought the wrong thing on behalf of a lack of their own research. Quick question if you happen to read this. Does the media collector automatically grab media from backed up computers and place it in the music/movies/pictures folders without duplicating it? This is what ive envisioned it as and have never been clear in the description. Its one of the things which has bugged me about the 470, I have all my music on my computer thus included in the backup yet when I want to have it in the Music folder in order to share remotely it is just a duplicate, is this still the case or does the media collector solve this issue? Ty, Just so you know HP has publicly reversed their decision to void waranties based on Memory upgrades. I upgraded mine 6 months ago or so and it was pretty pain free. As far as upgrading the processor I do not know, don't think HP mentioned that in the warranty reversal so that may still void it.

Well said. I certainly agree there's room for improvement, and I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who believes WHS and the MSS in particular delivers when expectations are not completely out of whack.

As far as your question on Media Collector, I want to be sure I completely understand your question. I believe you're asking if the Home Server copies over your music as part of a complete backup, and Media Collector grabs it for collection, will it occupy double space on the server? I know for sure that files that exist across multiple PCs, when backed up, will not. Since these files are not part of a backup, I can't say for certain, but I'm inclined to say they will take additional space on the server if grabbed by collector. I'm running a test now to see if that's the case, and so far it's panning out. If so, you can always exclude your music folders from the PC backup, and rely on collector to keep them housed on the server.

Edge said: Whether the 3.0 upgrade DVD is made available for free, $25 or $100 is irrelevant if the upgrade fails and ends up destroying several terabytes of precious data. That's my one and only concern. Since I first purchased the EX470, my " media jukebox" project has expanded to a sixteen-drive, 16 TB (8TBs x 2) configuration, with a fully loaded server, a Sans Digital TR4M eSATA port multiplier box and two Sans Digital TR4U USB towers. There is no simple or quick way to move or duplicate this amount of data, which took many, many hours to rip and upload from the over 5,000 CD and DVD discs in my collection, in addition to hundreds of digitized LPs from the vinyl era, which are additionally backed up onto CD-Rs. With RAM upgraded to 2GB and a more recent eSATA driver, my "old" EX470 system runs rock steady. I would be loath to have that change or to have to start reloading my media library all over again because of inadequately tested 3.0 upgrade software. Related to this is the unresolved issue of how to upgrade to a new home server model from an old one. It should really be as simple as sliding out the hard drives from the old box, popping them in the new one and then upgrading the operating software on the primary drive. It isn't. It requires starting from zero with a factory reset and reformatting every "new" drive added, destroying what was already on them. In my view, home servers will never catch on with the general public with an upgrade process so tortuous and inherently risk-prone. A factory reset is not an upgrade. - it's a lobotomy. In my view, the HP 3.0 software upgrade isn't that compelling in its own right, except as a down-payment on ongoing software improvements, of which many more are needed. For example, it is ridiculous that we need the intercession of a separate Vista (now Windows 7) PC to use the Windows Media Center features of the HP MediaSmart Connect x280n (or other extender), since in non-Windows Media Center mode it can access the very same data off the server directly. So why doesn't Windows Media Center run directly off the HP MediaSmart server? Why am I able to play ripped DVDs stored on my MediaSmart server on any PC in the house but not through the HP MediaSmart Connect? I realize that HP no longer makes or supports its media extender but the failure to support the world's most common video file structure, the only format which my old Samsung DVD recorder records in, doomed that product from the outset. I still use MediaSmart Connect to stream music (Windows 7 Media Center is quite an improvement in this regard), but it's forced me to move a media PC into the living room in order to stream movies with IFO menu navigation enabled. In short, the ability to convert DVD files into some other video format in 3.0 is a complete non-starter. I want and expect to be able to play DVD files natively. There are other media servers that claim they can do this. If so, that's an upgrade path worth taking.

I, too, have an EX470 and would be very interested to hear about your configuration and hardware setup.  I currently have 8 tb and would really like to add more to it, but I don't really want to use USB connections.

 Any information you can share would be greatly appreciated.

Gemini9674 said:

Edge said: Whether the 3.0 upgrade DVD is made available for free, $25 or $100 is irrelevant if the upgrade fails and ends up destroying several terabytes of precious data. That's my one and only concern. Since I first purchased the EX470, my " media jukebox" project has expanded to a sixteen-drive, 16 TB (8TBs x 2) configuration, with a fully loaded server, a Sans Digital TR4M eSATA port multiplier box and two Sans Digital TR4U USB towers. There is no simple or quick way to move or duplicate this amount of data, which took many, many hours to rip and upload from the over 5,000 CD and DVD discs in my collection, in addition to hundreds of digitized LPs from the vinyl era, which are additionally backed up onto CD-Rs. With RAM upgraded to 2GB and a more recent eSATA driver, my "old" EX470 system runs rock steady. I would be loath to have that change or to have to start reloading my media library all over again because of inadequately tested 3.0 upgrade software. Related to this is the unresolved issue of how to upgrade to a new home server model from an old one. It should really be as simple as sliding out the hard drives from the old box, popping them in the new one and then upgrading the operating software on the primary drive. It isn't. It requires starting from zero with a factory reset and reformatting every "new" drive added, destroying what was already on them. In my view, home servers will never catch on with the general public with an upgrade process so tortuous and inherently risk-prone. A factory reset is not an upgrade. - it's a lobotomy. In my view, the HP 3.0 software upgrade isn't that compelling in its own right, except as a down-payment on ongoing software improvements, of which many more are needed. For example, it is ridiculous that we need the intercession of a separate Vista (now Windows 7) PC to use the Windows Media Center features of the HP MediaSmart Connect x280n (or other extender), since in non-Windows Media Center mode it can access the very same data off the server directly. So why doesn't Windows Media Center run directly off the HP MediaSmart server? Why am I able to play ripped DVDs stored on my MediaSmart server on any PC in the house but not through the HP MediaSmart Connect? I realize that HP no longer makes or supports its media extender but the failure to support the world's most common video file structure, the only format which my old Samsung DVD recorder records in, doomed that product from the outset. I still use MediaSmart Connect to stream music (Windows 7 Media Center is quite an improvement in this regard), but it's forced me to move a media PC into the living room in order to stream movies with IFO menu navigation enabled. In short, the ability to convert DVD files into some other video format in 3.0 is a complete non-starter. I want and expect to be able to play DVD files natively. There are other media servers that claim they can do this. If so, that's an upgrade path worth taking.

I, too, have an EX470 and would be very interested to hear about your configuration and hardware setup.  I currently have 8 tb and would really like to add more to it, but I don't really want to use USB connections.  Any information you can share would be greatly appreciated.

There really isn’t that much to tell.  The key advantage of the original EX470/5 over all subsequent HP home servers until the EX490/5 release has been the ability to support a four-bay eSATA port multiplier box (the new models will apparently support five-bays).   What the original EX470 lacked was sufficient RAM.   A RAM upgrade to 2GB is fairly simple to accomplish, and how to do it is well documented at various user websites.  The only other unauthorized change I made to my EX470 was to upgrade the eSATA driver, the original one that comes preloaded with the server apparently causing problems with certain Sans Digital eSATA port multiplier installations.   Once you start adding external drives, you will also need the Windows Home Server Disk Management add-in from Tentacle Software to keep proper track of everything.

With 2TB drives now available (although still too expensive) it is possible to replicate my 16TB installation (2 x 8TB) using only the server and a port multiplier box.    I initially started off using single external USB drives for expansion (I had four at one point) but these ran dangerously hot to the touch in their metal enclosures, and were a rat’s nest of cords and cables.  Why HP would recommend external USB drives in a 24/7 home server configuration is beyond me.  A fan-cooled tower (eSATA or USB) is the only way to go in my view.

I eventually purchased a four-bay e-SATA port multiplier box from Sans Digital (four bays being the maximum supported by the EX470).  It took me a long while to realize that the EX470 would also support a USB tower, since this is nowhere indicated in the product literature.   Eventually, I added two “matching” four-bay SATA USB towers from Sans Digital, in order to enable full folder duplication for my ripped video library. The system now has 16 hard drives totalling 16 terabytes, ranging in size from 1.5TB to 500GB, the latter being the original drive that came with my EX470, currently installed in one of the USB towers.    (The lowest capacity drives go into the USB towers; the highest capacity drives go into the server and the eSATA port multiplier box.)

I will likely add one more USB tower before I am through, but this is not the ideal solution in the long run.  If HP had been on the ball, they would have built their latest home server with two, ideally three, port-multiplier-enabled eSATA ports, rather than just the one.   From a hardware perspective, the only real advantage of HP’s new home server models over my RAM-upgraded EX470 is the ability to support a five-bay port multiplier box, instead of my 4.  I’ll therefore be keeping my EX470 until something truly groundbreaking comes along, even if I can’t upgrade the software to 3.0. 

I have found no problems streaming DVD video content off the USB towers over a wireless N connection, as long as the server isn’t doing intensive folder duplication or data backups at the same time.    Unless you plan to rip and stream HD video, I would not be concerned about adding one or more USB towers to your system.