Home Server for Macs and PCs Available from HP

The folks at HP have introduced a great server solution for consumers, designed for use with both Windows PCs and Macs. The central repository can enable multiple users on a network to automatically back up and access digital music, videos, photos, and documents. Even gaming consoles can be hooked up to the system.

The HP MediaSmart Server ex485/ex487 is based on the Microsoft Windows Home Server platform, and automatically organizes files on PCs and Macs, streaming media across the network, as well as the Internet. Owners can also use the device to publish photos to popular social networking and photo sharing sites.

The HP Media Collector schedules the MediaSmart Server to copy and centralize digital files and libraries from networked PCs, and can centralize iTunes music libraries on the server for playback to any networked Mac or PC running iTunes.

"A growing number of digital-savvy households have both Windows and Mac computers, with hundreds and sometimes thousands of media files and documents scattered across these devices," Jason Zajac, vice president of strategy, Worldwide Attach Group, HP, said.

"The HP MediaSmart Server protects, stores, and organizes this content from anywhere on a network, so consumers can access and share it any place they are connected."

An Online Backup feature duplicates designated folders to Amazon's S3 online backup service, while users can fire up Smart Power Management to schedule times for the server to go to "sleep" and "wake up."

The device will ship with an Intel Celeron 2.0 GHz 64-bit processor, two gigabytes (GB) of 800-MHz DDR2 DRAM, and 750GB or 1.5TB storage for $599 and $749, respectively. The HP MediaSmart Server can go up to 9 terabytes (TB) of storage capacity.

The HP MediaSmart Server can be pre-ordered beginning on Jan. 5, 2009, from major online retailers like Amazon and BestBuy, and is slated for a February 2009 release. More information on the server can be found here.