Cheap Used Servers & Laptops

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.

I picked an EX495 a couple of weeks ago and it's worked flawlessly. I use to backup 2 desktop PCs and 3 laptops. It came with 1.5TB of storage rightout of the box and I had some spare 250GB drives so it was trivial to add them to the box. The value add that the HP provides in a nice box that takes up little room and a licensed copy of Twonky server. I have my EX495 set upto collect all of the digital camera photos from each machine. I picked up a Western Digital WD TV Live HD Media Player and it can display all of the photos in HD on my family room TV.

HP EX495 Media Smart Servers for Sale at Amazon

The HP EX495 Media Smart Server is the all-in-one solution to manage your media: a home server that can automatically backup and protect your digital memories, centralize your media and content for sharing with family and friends, and enable you to enjoy your digital media while at home or away. Network-based backup of PCs using Windows Home Server as well as Macs using Apple’s Time Machine. Media streaming of photos, music and videos to PCs, the entertainment center and remote devices including the iPhone. What's in the box: HP EX495 (1.5TB plus 3 unused expansion bays) MediaSmart Server, Power cord, Ethernet cable, Software installation disc , PC restore disc, Server recovery disc and Setup Poster and HP support guides. One year limited warranty and our dedicated software technical support available from date of purchase both online and by phone.

The HP EX485 MediaSmart Home Server comes with two 750GB HDDs and has two bays for expansion. Installation of addition drives to the HP EX485 MediaSmart only takes mounting on a tray and then an insertion directly into the server. Unlike other network accessible storage units with RAID redundancy, the user of the HP EX485 MediaSmart Home Server can access the full storage capacity or specify file duplication over multiple drives. This functionality is comparable to RAID0 technology.. The HP EX485 MediaSmart Home Server also has four USB ports and an eSata port for attachment of additional external drives, or (and this is not highlighted in the documentation) attachment of printers for accessibility from any networked PC.

HP EX485 MediaSmart Home Server for Sale at Amazon

HP EX485 MediaSmart Home Server for Sale at Other Retailers

HP EX490 MediaSmart Server - Celeron 2.2GHz - 2GB DDR2 SDRAM - 1 x 1TB - Serial ATA - Windows Home Server - Micro Tower Offer by: Buy.com USA and Buy.com CA Price: USD 513.99

HP 1TB MediaSmart Server Offer by: Best Buy Price: USD 549.99

HP EX490 MediaSmart Server Offer by: TheNerds.net Price: USD 577.99

HP EX485 MediaSmart Home Server at Ebay (Links Do Not Work!)