HP Mediasmart Server EX490

Based on a Microsoft operating system called Windows Home Server, the HP Mediasmart Server EX490 is a computer, but not a normal one.

Essentially it works as an automatic backup and recovery system for up to 10 other Windows PCs (or an unlimited number of Macs) on your home network. Like a network hard disk it can back up those computers, but there’s more.

The tiny, quiet EX490 uses about 35W of power and can hold four 3.5in Serial ATA hard disks – our review model had a single 1TB disk. More storage can be attached by connecting an external hard disk to the eSata socket or one of the four USB2 ports. The EX490 is operated entirely using a small application called the Console, which must be installed on each connected PC.

Adding or removing hard disks was simple, and you can use any combination of internal and external disks – there are no drive letters to worry about as everything is added to a central storage pool. If two or more disks are installed, the system can recover from the failure of any single one, using a technology called Drive Extender.

It connects to your home router using the supplied network cable – it’s not wireless-compatible. The setup process took us through a time-consuming download and installation of major updates. These are important but could confuse newer users – it would have been better had the device waited until everything was up and running before updating itself. In normal use (after installation), updates are automatic.

For every connected PC, the software automatically sets up a full daily backup of all its hard disks. If you have multiple PCs running the same version of Windows, it knows to only make one copy of the common system files, so it is quite efficient in terms of disk space.