Product Details
- Color: Black
- Brand: HP
- Model: LX195
- Dimensions: 8.20" h x
3.90" w x
8.00" l,
5.05 pounds
- CPU: Intel Atom 230
- Memory: 1GB SIMM
- Hard Disk: 640GB
- Processors: 1
Features
- Sleek, slim home server with 640 GB of storage for easy backups and media streaming in your home over over the Internet
- Remotely streams photos and music to any Internet-connected PC or Mac; upload photos to Flickr, Facebook and more
- Network-based backup of Windows PCs and Macs using Apple's Time Machine
- Expandable via four USB 2.0 ports for connecting to external USB hard drives
- Processor: Intel 1.6 GHZ Atom Processor 230
HP LX195 MediaSmart Home Server
Product Description
Built to Serve Your Digital Life! The HP MediaSmart Server LX195 is a home server that can automatically backup and protect your digital memories, centralize your media and content for sharing with friends and family, and enable you to enjoy your digital media while at home or away. Powered by Microsoft Windows Home Server software and Intel's Atom 1.6 GHZ Processor 230. Network-based backup of PCs using Windows Home Server and Macs using Apple¿s Time machine. Centralize your digital life for sharing with friends and family. The HP MediaSmart Server will automatically centralize your digital media for sharing with family and friends, and enable you to enjoy your digital media while at home or away. The HP Media Collector conveniently schedules the server to copy and centralize your Windows PC media files and libraries (including iTunes and playlists). Using an Internet-connected PC, you can quickly publish the photos on your server and/or directly to popular websites such as Snapfish, Flickr, Picasa Web Albums, and even Facebook. Serve up your digital life for friends, family and business associates! The HP Photo Viewer allows you to create photo albums for sharing with family and friends. You can even designate certain albums as ¿private¿ and available only for people who you choose to share.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
148 of 161 people found the following review helpful.
Features vs. Ease of Use vs. Cost - hard to find the perfect balance
By A. Dent
The Microsoft Home Server-based HP LX195 MediaSmart was designed to offer the home user 'out of the box' centralized backups of many connected devices as well as central storage facilities for the home's data: music, photos, movies and so on. Its media collector can be set to periodically check the connected computers and copy newly found media files to the server. The built in media servers would allow devices not specifically connected to the MediaSmart such as a PS3 or Xbox 360 to access and play the server's Music, Photo and Movie stores. The iTunes server will stream music and playlists to computers that are running iTunes or to compatible devices. In addition, there is an interface to allow for publishing one's photos to sites such as Google's Picassa or one's flickr page or Facebook account. The Windows Media Center connector allows clients with Windows Media Center installed to play music, videos and recorded TV stored on the home server. When properly setup, backups are possible externally on Amazon's S3 cloud (a paid service) and, with proper setup, the server could be managed and server's media files could be set to be accessible from the Net.After the initial setup, the backup and media streaming services can be made available to Mac clients.The MediaSmart's initial one-disk, 640GB storage capacity can be expanded by attaching up to 4 additional disk drives via USB ports. Once more than one disk is available, the media folders can be 'duplicated' to allow for data redundancy in the event of an accident.BRIEF EVALUATION:In my view, this specific model, while attempting to strike a balance between features and ease of operation/simplicity, it comes short of expectations, to various degrees, on both ends - the end product may not appear to be easy to setup to 'the average user' and it's not always easy to use while most of the services offered don't have sufficient flexibility in fine-tuning via the simple interfaces provided.But, here are the goods and the bads:(good)+ Backups, once the setup is complete do work+ Easy maintenance+ Server appears to recover nicely from minor incidents and outages+ Disk expansion via USB ports is as easy as plugging the disk in+ Once one or more disks are added, folder duplication does protect the data+ No bloatware. The only 'free trial' third party is the McAffee Total Protection service but it's an optional install and it does not pop up every time the home server is accessed+ Automatic Windows update for the Home Server operating system is easy to set up+ Expandable functionality through Additional add-ons installations+ Both the Windows Home Server online Help facility/manual and the MediaSmart manual are very well written(bad)- somewhat underpowered with an Atom one-core CPU and 1GB RAM.- 640GB is insufficient storage for a machine that's supposed to back up 'everything'- the out-of-the-box one-disk architecture puts data at risk- the only officially documented server expansion is additional disks but memory expansion, while not documented, should be possible- some difficulties can be encountered during the initial installation and setup- installation and setup does not allow for a lot of flexibility- a little awkward access to media files from registered clients - require a separate account setup even when 'read only' data is accessed- direct access to the Microsoft Home Server OS is labeled as risky - warning states that the OS COULD break if the native interface is usedTo be fair, once the initial setup completes, the server will operate more or less trouble-free for as long as the home network does not change in any dramatic fashion. The lack of flexibility can be addressed to some extent if one is willing to access and 'play' with each of the client machines configurations and access and tweak the Windows Home Server operating system directly but then the 'ease of setup' claim would have to be abandoned.MY EXPERIENCE:My own server installation, setup, operation and use can be summarized as follows:- Initial setup required significant changes at the server's own TCP/IP configuration and each of the client PC's. All was well documented in the 250-page manual but I did have to set up a static IP for the server, modify the HOSTS file on each PC, register several installed apps with the Windows Firewall.- Centralized backups were easy to configure but the options are few. The software decides by itself which folders should be excluded and there is no way to take them off the list. The only option is to add some more folders. The schedule can be configured for the server to retain the desired number of monthly, weekly and daily backups. The daily backups are incremental and they complete within minutes. The initial backup, depending on what network you are, can take many hours. It took hours for my computers in a 56Mps (about 6MB per second) wireless setting. Interestingly, the backup utility has the ability to 'wake up' a computer that's put to 'sleep' or 'hibernate' and, more often than not, it was able to put the machine back to sleep once the backup was finished.- The lack of flexibility makes the media collector, even when it works, not worth using. As far as data collection it has only 2 options: either a specific and preset collection of folders for the various type of media where the files are more likely to be found - like 'My Music' for music - or 'all folders'. After testing the collection on 3 machines I found that on one it found a lot of 'stuff' that I didn't want found - little picture files associated with some software installations - while on another it found nothing even when I selected 'all folders'. I suspect something having to do with my setup but I decided to give up and I manually copied the media that I wanted on the server.- Surprisingly, one device that benefits the most seems to be our PS3 which picked up and was able to take advantage of the Media Server even before I was finished with the server setup. Even more surprisingly, no authentication was requested from the PS3 even though it was playing the same files that required an account and a password if I wanted to access them from my own computer.- Central stores for media files is a useful feature, especially when the folder duplication is activated.- The ability to publish photos to sites such as Picasa, flickr or Facebook works but, in the case of Picasa, which I tested, the task can be accomplished better with Picasa's own interface which provides a lot more flexibility.- Storage expansion is easy but, again, not sufficient flexibility. The first disk I plugged in had a FAT32 partition and a larger NTFS partition. My expectation was for the server to ignore the FAT32 and use the NTFS but, to my surprise, not only it reformatted the disk but it actually re-partitioned it and produced an NTFS-only, one-partition drive. Just to make it clear, it did tell me that it was going to reformat and repartition my disk before it proceeded to do so.- Self diagnostic and recovery seem to be satisfactory for minor glitches but, not sufficient information is available for more difficult troubleshooting unless one goes to the operating system. Unplugging the server did not damage it. Unplugging the attached disk created a number of errors and suggestions on how to fix them but, once the disk was plugged back in, the server became healthy again within minutes and, to my surprise, all the notifications simply disappeared as if there was never a problem.- With a Wireless-G router, providing 56Mbs, music streaming went well on the PS3. The PS3 immediately recognized the media server and it played the music.- Photo viewing was so-so on the internal network. Could see individual pictures but playing slide-shows with 3-5MB individual picture files was a little slow and choppy.- Video streaming was not acceptable at all but I suspect it would have been okay if I had a 'wired' home network.- I decided not to try remote access at this time because I had no compelling reasons to do so.https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdspCt3VPEFQbwRMI85479i-UY656F4qXcSytZ8jSNoZpoWu3VHLxSpE1UbDhvnX-1MJcFoo9wuTEiwhKKMxLVPavD14OcJEbgAXdwa6S_Vliu_VNe32IH8KghEUkJwzu8UmThxV1Sh1A/s1600/rating.png:- 3.5 Stars for INSTALLATION AND SETUP. The server does not normally install itself but a lot of the complication is attributable to the complexities of a home's network environment. I expect for real users to report anything from "it installed within minutes and I didn't have to do a thing" to "I spent many hours with the HP Help Support and now I'm returning it because they couldn't help me." It would have be nice if the printed version of the 200+ page manual was included in the box.- 2.0 Stars for DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE. I understand cost constraints issues but to sell a home SERVER with only one disk and a rather small one at that was not a wise decision. This is supposed to be sold to the 'average' home users and this makes it worse because it's the average users who do not understand that their data is NOT fully protected this way.- 3.0 Stars for PERFORMANCE. One Atom processor, one small disk (for a server) and only 1GB of memory do not assure me that the server will continue to perform adequately if and when more add-ons are installed. It gets 3 stars because it performs well at this time.- 4.0 Stars for EASE OF USE, once configured. The server administration is easy for as long as one doesn't forget the server's password. Most quirks are minor and, once configured, the server pretty much runs itself.- 3.0 Stars for CONFIGURABILITY. This has to do with the frustrating scarcity of options on services such as backups or media collection. I agree that most of the bases are covered on day one but a user's demands and sophistication tends to grow with use.- 4.0 Stars for FUNCTIONALITY. Backups and folder duplication are good for as long as a second disk is added. Media streaming works as well as the network bandwidth would allow it. Some of the services such as photo publishing or photo viewing are not likely to be used much. The same for over-the-Internet access which implies a level of user skills and sophistication at which one would probably not purchase this entry-level box. Same is true for the Amazon S3 backup service.- 3.0 Stars for EXPANDABILITY. USB disks are easy to add and users with some level of sophistication should be able to install add-ons without much difficulty - the process is well documented in the manual. However, there are no internal drive bays and I suspect that memory expansion or CPU upgrades are a pain, if possible at all without voiding the warranty.OVERALL https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdspCt3VPEFQbwRMI85479i-UY656F4qXcSytZ8jSNoZpoWu3VHLxSpE1UbDhvnX-1MJcFoo9wuTEiwhKKMxLVPavD14OcJEbgAXdwa6S_Vliu_VNe32IH8KghEUkJwzu8UmThxV1Sh1A/s1600/rating.png - 3 STARSWhile I can live with this server and I WILL be using it for worry-free backups and some media streaming and central storage, I would hesitate recommending it to a first-time user while knowing that superior products are currently available for not significantly more.__________________________________________Update:While I'm not compelled to change the 'star rating', I must note of another feature that I don't believe is documented but it's a really nice one: the Home Server seems to be monitoring and issuing certain security alerts concerning connected clients. It told me, for example, that there was an issue with my son's laptop spyware protection and, because of that, it marked the 'network state' as 'critical'. It turns out, that was indeed the case. His 'pay' virus/software protection had expired and it was a good opportunity to remove it and replace it with a free alternative.
56 of 60 people found the following review helpful.
Simple Server Solution
By J. Finkel
Most people will take a look at the HP LX195 MediaSmart Home Server and be a little confused as to what exactly you're getting for your money. PC's are becoming popular as media centers and this MediaSmart Server takes it one step further. For families who share one main computer where all of their music, movies and pictures are held, this is not going to be much help; you'd be better off with an external hard drive. However, for families living in the 21st century with multiple computers and a need to get data both back and forth and backed up, this could be the perfect addition to your home network.Of course, the LX195 offers a lot more than just a hub and safe for your data. It has a thoughtfully designed operating system that will keep track of your antivirus protection and windows updates in case you forget. It provides automatic backups. And best of all, it plays well with ps3 and xbox 360 so you can stream video to your tv, which is where you probably want it.Now for the shortcomings - there are a few big ones for this bottom-of-the-line system. Due to it's price point, you'll be getting an adequate, but modest processor. Also, despite how cheap RAM is, you'll only get 1GB. Furthermore, the 640GB HDD may be more than enough space for most families, but is definitely a major thing to consider before you buy. Despite having 4 USB 2.0 ports, the expandability is meager. Unlike the more costly EX line of MediaSmart Servers, the LX195 has no extra internal bays. USB connections are slower than internal and an external drive will cost more than an internal one. Also, many USB drives require their own power outlet. At this price, it's hard to expect too much more, but a 1TB HDD and 2GB RAM would have bumped this Server up a notch (and a star).Overall, I recommend this Server to homes with multiple computers and definitely to those with a video game system or computer capable of streaming network content to their tv. If you are in the bad habit of not backing up your data, then this was definitely designed for you. Those looking for the ultimate tech toy for streaming HD movies and backing up multiple 1TB discs should look on to the EX line or elsewhere.
29 of 33 people found the following review helpful.
Love it!
By moviebuff69
I bought this to replace a couple usb drives and a buffalo nas product and have been thrilled thus far. Setup was a snap and the backups for all of my PCs are happening every night... I didn't have to do a thing.Best part of all has been the speed - light years faster than my nas product to the point that I'm now saving large files directly to the MediaSmart Server vs. on my local PC. All in all, I highly recommend if you're looking for a small, easy and fast backup and sharing "server" in your home...
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