By Philip Churchill on January 15th, 2010
Is the EX495 Worth It?
Computer Shopper has a turn at reviewing the EX495 MediaSmart, and reviewer Daniel Begun isn’t sure that HPs latest offering is worth it.
We think it is, what do you think?
Read about it here.
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I bought my EX495 in December and am continuing to struggle to get Media Collector working using Windows 7. I’ve just gone through the server recovery (factory reset) process again. I’m hoping the 3rd time is the charm, but the author is right. It seems like more trouble than it’s worth at the moment. A complete lack of meaningful documentation or HP website guides is not helpful, either. Having spent the money, I”m committed to making this work (before I’m committed to an institution…….)
Most of the problems they were having was a result in being impatient. Running Media Collector then forcing a reboot. Running Video Conversion then doing a server reinstall. Not rebooting the server at the right time. They didn’t even get into backups and Drive Extender which greatly reduces the size of backups.
You have to expect to pay around $80 more because you must purchase Microsoft’s WHS software. Should be $450
Bought my EX495 this past November and have been loving it since. It only took me 20 minutes to setup so I don’t know what the guy at Computer Shopper had problems with. As diehard said, the reviewer seemed very impatient and the fact they say the server is slow when they are doing media collection from 4 different computers (a mix between Macs and Windows boxes) along with video converting at the same time shows this. You can’t do all of that at once and not expect the server’s CPU pegged, especially with video converting.
Also, yes you can assign the EX495 with a static IP, but you have to do it by RDPing into the server itself and changing the network settings. This is simple. It is unfortunate that you can not do this from the WHS console and that it is not documented by HP, but you can still do it.
I don’t believe this review is an accurate representation of the EX495. It’s a great little NAS and the only thing one should be concerned with is the price. Depending on what one wants/needs, a cheaper NAS may be more suitable.