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The Acer Aspire AH340-UA230N Home Server is a great solution for today's multi-computer home. I work from my home, and we have 5 computers around the house. About a year ago, my main computer crashed. Even though I had most of my data on a NAS box, it really did not work well and did not do automatic backups of all the computers on the network. My son-in-law Mark took an older computer I had and installed MS Home Server on it. It was great! Automatic backups, access to all my data from any system in the house! Fantastic. No more looking for a memory card to move data from one computer to another.

Acer Aspire AH340-UA230N Home Server for Sale at Amazon

Some issues with this solution, however, brought me to the Acer. First of all, having so many drives in the older computer put a strain on its power supply and caused some overheating issues. It was loud. I had to run the computer with the side panel off because of the heat from all the drives. Also, if I wanted to add or change drives, it was a real hassle.

The Acer solved all of these issues. It was very small, very quiet and well ventilated. It came with the OS installed plus a 1TB drive, with 3 additional "hot swap" or easy-install drive bays. Need more storage? Simply slide out the carrier, insert a SATA drive, and slide it in. All done. I am now running with 3 TB of storage on this quiet little system.

Some people get concerned because they see it is powered by an Atom processor. Don't be. This is not an application server where the apps run on the server. No, you still have the apps running on your system. This acts as a quiet resource in the background ready to serve up your data or back you up on the schedule you set. More than enough power for that.

The OS allows you to easily manage backups on any schedule for any PC on the network. Reminders appear on the client systems if the OS has been unable to back up a specific system.

The HP EX475 MediaSmart Server features 1 TB of hard drive capacity with two 500 GB SATA drives, 512 MB of installed DDR2 RAM, and four hard drive bays for additional expansion. A Gigabit Ethernet port for ultra-fast networking (and connection to a wireless router), four USB 2.0 ports (1 on the front, 3 on the back) for connecting to additional hard drives, and an and an eSATA port for high-speed data transfer to external storage devices--up to 6 times faster than existing solutions.

• Conveniently centralize your files and access them from an internet-connected computer
• 1 TB of storage space on 2 500GB hard drives, expands via 2 additional hard drive bays.
• Automatically backup and protect the digital memories on your home PCs running Windows XP and later operating systems
• Stream photos, music and videos to PCs on your network or to your TV or stereo system
• Powered by Microsoft Windows Home Server software and 1.8 GHz, 64-bit AMD Sempron processor

Visit here to learn more about the HP EX475 MediaSmart Home Server!

The HP EX487 MediaSmart Server comes with dual 750 GB hard drives (for 1.5 TB of storage right out of the box) and four drive bays that allow you to add optional off-the-shelf SATA I or II hard drives--up to a maximum capacity of 9 TB (terabytes). Additionally, the HP EX487 MediaSmart includes four USB 2.0 ports and one eSATA port for connecting an attached external hard drive, and it provides capabilities for offsite backup via automatic upload to Amazon's S3 service.

HP EX487 MediaSmart Servers for Sale at Amazon

Software Features

• Operating System: Powered by Windows Home Server, a new software solution from Microsoft for storing, accessing, sharing and automatically protecting digital files.
• HP Control Center: The HP MediaSmart software that sits on top of the Windows Home Server software making access to tasks easier. Users with administrative access privileges can access the Windows Home Server Console from the HP Control Center.
• Windows Home Server Console: Software accessed from the HP Control Center to manage your HP MediaSmart Server. Software includes setting up shared folders, assigning user access privileges and customizing backups.
• File Sharing and Storage: Effortlessly centralize your files and access them from any PC and or Mac on your home network.
• PC Hard Drive Disk Backup: Once the HP MediaSmart Server software is installed on a home PC, the Windows Home Server backup software automatically starts backing up the PCs hard disk drive image every night. You can customize the number and frequency of backups kept.
• Mac Backup: Back up your Macs to the MediaSmart Server using Apple's Time Machine software.