I recently purchased a HP EX490 1TB Mediasmart Home Server (Black). So far, I really like it. Here are some of the things I came across during the first few days.

Initial setup

If you install the client software from the provided CD, Windows Home Server (WHS) will report that there are critical network errors. To prevent this, just install directly from the WHS network share instead of the CD. If you have to fix it manually, be sure to Restart the Home Server! You'll definitely want to install power pack 3 on the WHS, especially if you use Windows 7.

iTunes Streaming

In order to move an existing iTunes library to the home server, just do this. Beware, that after you're done, info on the tracks in the library are read only, some tracks lose tag information, and you can't sync to ipod devices from this server. But it does stream quite nicely.

Remote Access

I've been using dyndns.org for my DDNS needs for several years, and it has been fantastic. My router supports it. It was free. The bad news: WHS only supports very limited DDNS options using their setup wizards. My choices were to abandon dyndns.org and have things set up easily, or customize my router myself and pay no attention to the warning messages in WHS. In the end, I decided to use the WHS provided experience to avoid working against the product. The end result is that my new domain name is just as easy as my old one.

iPhone Access

For the iPhone application, if you bump into the "The operation could not be completed because the server provided invalid data" error, be sure to check that you enabled Remote Access for the user you're logging in with. You may very well need to reboot the Home Server and the iPhone in order to get the settings to stick. Also, in the iPhone app, just specify the server name with no protocol (e.g. use my.homeserver.com and not http://my.homeserver.com). Even after all that, I don't know that I'll use this app. It works great when using wifi at home, but the 3g connection is unreliable. I got warning messages saying it couldn't play a music file because the connection speed was to slow and then it would play 5 seconds of a song, buffer for a minute, play 5 seconds, and reapeat. But then later, it worked so quickly that it was just like streaming from home.

Media Collector

The Media Collector is a giant steaming pile of FAIL. Well, at least my knowledge of it is; it's quite possible this experience is due to my ignorance. After enabling the iTunes server above, it copied all of my music to the Music share - which is good. I then enabled the Media Collector and it proceeded to obliterate my local iTunes library, marking all of the files as missing. It also locked my login account out on the WHS. I had to Remote Desktop in to the WHS and unlock the user account. Then I completely deleted my iTunes library, re-added all of the files from my local drive, consolidated the library back to the WHS, and finally was able to resync my iPhone successfully again, after a previous sync decided to delete all of the applications on my phone. Following this, I promptly disabled the Media Collector. Maybe I'll look into this more after the next WHS upgrade. It was extremely an disappointing experience, and now I'll have to manually manage music/videos/photos by syncing to the WHS from each PC.

Subversion

You can use this link to set up VisualSVN Server on WHS. However, if you use the information from this support article from VisualSVN, you can store the repository directly on the share and not resort to writing directly to the D: drive. I added NETWORK SERVICE permissions as I followed the directions, and everything is working perfectly.

Update, 1/17/10: I've had a few requests to be more specific about the setup above. For both of these steps, you need to RDP into the WHS server.

• For the sharing: Go to d:\shares and right-click on the folder you store your repositories in (e.g. Repositories). Select Sharing and Security (which takes you to the Sharing tab). Add NETWORK SERVICE with Full Control here.
• For the permissions: Go to the Security tab, and then add NETWORK SERVICE with Full Control.

Other observations

• Backups are awesome
• It works great with TimeMachine on the Mac
• It doesn't redundantly store all data like a drobo does (you have to specify which files you really care about enough to mirror across drives).
• Windows 7 support is very nicely done. I now use the Windows User Documents storage location for the first time ever. Couple that with Libraries and it's quite cool
• iPhoto support is lacking. It would be nice to have a "Server for iPhoto", much like the "Server for iTunes". That way I could share/access the photos between multiple computers, regardless of platform.
• I really want to take all of the condensed and shared files and do an online backup to like Mozy, Carbonite, or the like. VaultKeeper is WAY too expensive. Amazon S3 is too expensive. Mozy and Carbonite don't work with WHS. We desperately need a solution in this space. I'm thinking along the lines of $100 per year would be what I'm willing to pay.

Bottom Line

I like this unit a lot, despite some glaring issues. I'm backing up for the first time ever in my life. How I made it this long without disaster striking is a testament to my luck, and nothing more. The bottom line for me is I can't imagine being without this kind of solution from now on.