MacandPcStore.com

Great support, poor product

Customer Rating:
The good news:

HP support in Canada has been excellent although of course everything is time consuming.

The bad news:

1. The product is not reliable. We have had two hard drive failures. After about 6 months the server started disconnecting and had to be powered down and up again. HP, after the usual process of going through all kinds of settings and sending them the log, replaced the drive. OK, these things happen, that's what warranties are for.

The replacement lasted two months and the same thing happened. HP are replacing it again but who knows whether this one will last as they are using refurbished hard drives for warranty replacements.

2. HP are not prepared to provide anything other than a refurbished replacement drive or take any other steps to ensure that the product is more reliable.

Another shoddy HP product

Customer Rating:
We have a home network with two PCs and two Macs, and this server seemed like a good solution for storage and backups. The advertised support for Mac Time Machine backups was a particular enticement, so when we saw a special offer that made the price very reasonable, we bought one. Initial setup on the Windows side was easy; setting up the Mac controller was difficult and time-consuming, and I had to come up with an elaborate workaround to get the Time Machine backups working, but once they were set up, they worked well...for about six weeks. Then suddenly the Macs could no longer see the Mediasmart on the network. We hadn't changed anything about our network configuration; the server just disappeared. Over the next couple of weeks, it would periodically reappear in the Mac Finder, but neither Mac could connect to it. On the advice of some Windows Home Server message board users, I uninstalled the Mac software and reinstalled a clean copy. This made things worse; now I couldn't even get past the login screen, and kept getting a "validation error" even though the login information was correct.

Having heard horror stories about HP tech support, I decided to troubleshoot the problem myself (from one of the Windows machines) before contacting them. I checked all the settings, deleted and re-created my Mac user account, and went into the advanced administration interface to see if I could find the problem. Everything looked normal, and I wasn't sure what to try next, till the server made that decision for me: it simply stopped responding. Now none of the computers on the network were able to connect to it. Reluctantly, I decided to use the recovery disc that came with the server, even though that would probably mean losing all the data on it. I followed the instructions in the recovery software but couldn't get the server into recovery mode. After a little more online research, I discovered that the instructions are incomplete, and I would have to manually assign an IP address to both the PC and the server before attempting recovery. I did this, and also bought a crossover ethernet cable at someone's recommendation. Still no luck.

Finally, in desperation, I contacted HP support. The agent walked me through the steps to get the server into recovery mode, which were again different from the included instructions (and from what I'd read online). After two hours on the phone, the server still wasn't in recovery mode. So the agent had me download some logging software, repeat the process, and send him the log file. Three days after I did, he responded with a couple of other things to try. Those didn't work either. After telling him that, I heard nothing further, so finally after five days I tried to get a status update. He asked if I had another PC that I could try. No, I told him, I've tried all the PCs in the house. So he asked if I could borrow one. That's right--instead of offering to have HP repair or replace the product, he suggested that I borrow a PC just to see if the two PCs I own already were somehow defective. When I suggested that this wasn't a very reasonable idea and that I wanted HP to fix their malfunctioning (and still under warranty) product, he reluctantly offered to send a replacement chassis for me to try--if I would either provide a credit card and let them put a $450 hold on it till I returned the original chassis, or have them send me a shipping box to return the original, at which point they would send me a replacement, all of which could take about ten business days. Throughout all of this, he kept telling me that it was very common not to be able to get servers into recovery mode and therefore it didn't mean that my product was defective. But if that error is common, doesn't it suggest that the product is inherently defective?

So finally, I gave up. I'll be writing a letter of complaint to HP, but it's clear that they have a mediocre product that they're not willing to stand behind, and that their interpretation of "under warranty" means "you can call tech support, but you'll have to do your own repairs." I'm giving the product two stars rather than one because for the brief time it worked, it worked well. But I've never before dealt with a company that expected me to fix its failed equipment, but that's the kind of company HP is. I won't be buying anything from them again, and I can't recommend that anyone else do so, either.

Seamlessly attached into our network

Customer Rating:
This MediaSmart server was a breeze to connect to our wireless network router. Once connected it has run well for some time now. Our only complaint is a complaint with many home servers and that is there appearance. I don't mind having the server visible to everyone, but my wife hates it. However, because of ventilation issues we need to have the server out in the open.

If you are looking for a non-complicated way of having a home server this is a good choice.

A Compact Home server

Customer Rating:
This server has been working continuously since I got it 5 months ago.
Its the ideal download server using only ~28 watts. Very fast transfer speeds. Runs very cool.
Easy to upgrade memory or hard drive if you want. Sleep functions work very well.
Loads of apps and pluggins to use with Windows Home Server.

Cheap server

Customer Rating:
I love this server, is very easy to set up and works very well, I have not complaints about it, you'll find options in internet to upgrade this server, such as memory and disk upgrade and a kvm connector (keyboard, video and mouse output)

Actually I used as a workstation too.

And yes, It has a double core.