As many of you have noticed, December is solidly here and we’re getting anxious to see the 3.0 Software Update for the EX470/EX475 and EX485/EX487 MediaSmart Servers. The last update we had from HP back in October indicated a December release date and an estimated price of $25 for the upgrade. Today we’ve got an update from HP that provides a status update, with both some good news and some bad news.
HP MediaSmart Server 3.0 Software Update Progress
In the latter stages of testing our 3.0 software update, a couple of issues were discovered with the upgrade disks. One was related to compatibility with PowerPack 3 and the other with the media streaming software. Both issues have fixes and we are now going back through our build and testing process. As a result, the 3.0 software update DVD availability will now be in February. While this delay was unexpected, we remain committed to providing this upgrade path for owners of our EX470/475/485/487 products. As previously communicated, these upgrades will be available as a server recovery solution.
The cost of the upgrade DVD has been finalized and will be US$25 or €25.
Of course the bad news is that the release of the 3.0 software for previous generation MediaSmart Servers has been delayed to February. The good news is that HP has reaffirmed it’s commitment to providing us with the update, as well as confirmed that the process will be a Server Recovery that preserves your data rather than requiring a Factory Reset that would force a clean install.
About 3 weeks ago I received copies of the above mentioned 3.0 software update, one for the EX47x servers and another for the EX48x server. These are full 3-disk media packs individually suited for each hardware platform that include the Server Recovery DVD, PC Install CD, and PC Restore CD all with the 3.0p1 software. I upgraded both an EX475 and an EX487 server, and was largely successful though I did encounter both of the issues described in the HP announcement. The process went very smoothly, and after discovering a workaround to resolve the PP3 install issue both systems were functioning well. The nature of the issues do require more development and testing time, and with the holidays here I can understand HP needing more time to work on these updates.
I’ve heard many comments in the forums, but the one that sticks with me the most came from forum member “Comp1962″.
While I want the 3.0 I want it working perfectly so if it takes them longer then so be it.
We’ve waited a while for the 3.0 update, and from what I saw during my time running the pre-release updates on my EX475 and EX487 I think it’s worth waiting for HP to get the update process working great.
Article by Alex Kuretz
I'm Alex Kuretz, and I'm the founder of MediaSmartServer.net. I was the Lead Test and Integration Engineer at HP for the MediaSmart Server until April 2008 when I moved on to other opportunities outside HP. I've kept active in the Windows Home Server community, creating several add-ins and helping users make the most of their Home Servers.
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Thanks Alex,
I’ve done exhaustive research and testing, as well as contact with HP Support to try to get a satisfactory resolution to address the disparity between the marketing claims and the disappointing performance with Twonky Media. What I find shocking is that I appear to a lone voice in the wilderness. Twonky isn’t too bad if you put a very small media library in the folders it can access. Once you put a modestly sized media library at its disposal, it brings the system to its knees.
The conclusion is that this harware/software combination was never appropriate and HP marketed capabilities that were unrealistic. Charging end users to remedy this situation is disgraceful.
We’ve tested WebGuide and found that it performs better than Twonky, but there are issued with it, and the author is no longer working on the software. I mention WebGuide only as an example of software that can stream video over internet without hogging CPU usage.
HP should have tested the advertised capabilities of their product and provided a useable system prior to release, rather than using us as Beta tester and then asking us to pay again for something that might work.
Where are we if we shell out another $25 and it still doesn’t work? How many chances shoud they get? How much should it cost us? I, for one, just can’t understand the consumer’s desire to cheerfully be abused repeatedly when it involves computers. If your TV doesn’t work properly, you demand a repair, if your computer doesn’t work properly, you wonder what YOU did wrong!
I just think everyone should think twice before rewarding HP for selling a flawed product.
From what I recall, when 2.5 came out and HP said Ex47x users wouldn’t get the new features, the user community was very upset and expressed their frustration and displeasure. This was largely before reports of some of the problems you mentioned, so it was really just 47x users wanting the new features. Some people (myself included) said that they would be willing to pay a small amount to get the new features if that was the only way to get HP to decide to relase the 2.5 update for 47x customers.
Of course, while HP was dragging their heels on the update, they released the 49x series with the 3.0 software. That, combined with the unaddressed problems in the 2.5 release affecting 48x customers appears to have resulted in the decision to put out the 3.0 release for both 47x and 48x customers rather than trying to fix the problems in an updated 2.5 release. So while paing $25 (which seems a bit on the high side to me) may have been somethat acceptable for a “new feature release”, it later become much less acceptable because it turned into a “only way to get bug fixes” release that happened to include some new features for 48x customers.
But I really wish that HP had just decided to post the ISO images and only charge a fee for poeple that wanted physical media delivered.
@Gary – Sounds like you’ve done due diligence trying to sort through the issues, sorry to hear it turned out that way. For curiosities sake I’d be interested to hear the size of the libraries you’re dealing with that cause problems.
@Darkon – HP can’t post ISO’s due to Microsoft licensing restrictions on the Server Recovery media.
One last thing to put things into perspective (at least from my own experiences). Overall I have been very happy with my HP Ex470 because it runs WHS in a well-designed box. WHS (which could run on any box) really does a good job of meeting many of my needs and I really like the design of the EX boxes.
However, where HP did a great job of advertising the value they add beyond the basic WHS feature set, their ability to delier these extra features has fallen short of what I would expect. In many cases these extra features simply did not work very well or at all for many users, and I have to wonder if anyone at HP actually uses any of these features on a daily basis and how much testing really goes into them because some of the problems are so obvious it is hard to believe they wouldn’t have been caught in the most superficial testing.
Another issue is that many of the add-ins are licensed or use code from other companies. This has the benefit of allowing HP to offer more functionality with less people on the MSS team, but it means they have less control over the quality of these components. It also takes users longer to the updates for these components because they be integrated into an HP release (which as we’ve seen can take a LOOONNNGGGG time).
The one area where I’d really commend HP is their addition of Mac support. I really think they listened to users on this one and have (incrementally) delivered what people like myself wanted in this area. Nobody else offers anything like this (as far as I know).
So my experiences with HP fal into the “You can only be hurt by the ones you love” category.
Thanks for your interest Alex,
My D:\shares folder is 274 GB.
This includes:
Converted Videos – 24.8GB
Music – 98.2GB, 28,154 Files
Photos – 69.5GB, 24,469 Files
Although some may think this is “sizeable”, I contend that this system is sold with 3 empty drive bays. Surely it is conceivable that large media libraries, much larger than mine, are going to be put on these systems. After all, we are in the age of 2TB drives. Even if we used a TB for backups, there is still enough capacity to manage 6+TB of additional storage. In that this is marketed as a Media Smart System, I assume that HP anticipated that the additional storage capacity would likely be used to store media files. That is why I am dismayed that this product was released with such dismal software.
I have asked on several WHS forums if anyone has ever had any satisfactory results running Twonky. The consensus is always that you’re just better off removing it so that the other functions of the server can run much better once the CPU drag from Twonky is removed.
Also, understand that I am doing all testing on a wired gigabit network connected to FIOS internet service with 35/35 speed. If it can’t work well with 35mbs upload speeds, it must be terrible trying to get results with slower connection speeds.
So I think I’m trying to gauge what the chances are that the next version is somehow going to be more successful than the last. I’m not convinced that this platform will ever be able to successfully run this application. If somehow they do get it right this time, isn’t that we thought we were buying originally? Why should we have to pay for a bug fix?
My music library is about a third the size of yours, my photos are similar, and my video library is much larger though I’ve only converted a handful to mobile streaming format for testing as I’ve not found that feature useful for me plus it doesn’t work reliably or effectively. I listen to music stream all day most every day at work, and though the Flash interface has a few quirks it largely works very well for me. Twonky has also worked well in my home for streaming to multiple media streamers.
To confirm, your issues are strictly with the Remote Web Streaming, correct? Or do you have problems with in-home streaming as well?
I don’t have any sure-fire fixes for you. It sounds like the MSS doesn’t meet your needs, and I’m not sure the 3.0 update will resolve things for you so I can’t recommend you personally spend money trying it. I am interested to hear what you come up with as an alternate solution that does work well.
Yes. I primarily bought the ex485 in the hope that it would satisfy my need to provide access to friends and family so that I wouldn’t have to mail dvd’s or send emails every time we went on vacation or one of my kids performed in the school play. The idea of just giving them an account so they could access and view remotely was the reason I bought the ex485. Now, after over a year of wasting time trying to get it to work, I’ve all but given up.
As for internal sharing, Windows Media Center and iTunes work so much better, why use Twonky? They work even better when Twonky is disabled and the overhead is gone.
Yes, I agree that Twonky is adequate for streaming music. But it’s much easier to get rid of Twonky altogether and take a USB drive to work.
I disagree about the USB drive, it’s so much easier to update my music in place and know I can get at it anywhere I want.
I do agree that WMC is superior, but iTunes does not suit my needs, and neither works with the majority of media streaming devices such as the WDTV Live, PopCorn Hour, MediaSmart Connect, etc. But all that is an entirely different discussion that should be taken up in the forums.
Sorry to hear of your difficulties, I do understand your frustration. Hopefully you’re able to work out a solution that suits your needs.
Man I really hate that HP put out an unfinished product and blah blah blah… blah blah blah…
oh… the HP order link is live, click click click wallet…
And I just placed my order. (a little more than $25 after they added shipping, tax, and undercoating)
CONFIRMATION FROM HP
Your order has been successfully accepted.
Your order number is XXXXXX , and your cost is $29.63 (USD).
The estimated date of delivery is 03/05/2010
My server is all backed up and ready to be upgraded. Anyone have any advice on when I should add new discs to the server though? I have 2 new 1.5’s that I’d like to put in, before the upgrade or after? (i’m thinking after right now)
@Bruce – My experience as far as factory resets go, is that it’s better to have one drive in and then add the others afterwards, seems to make everything go a little faster. I would imagine the same is true for a server restore.
So I placed my order right away, last Thursday the 25th. I paid for overnight and the order status page says expected delivery date 3-2-10 but no other info. I called to check on the order status and the poor guys answering the phones in the Mediasmart group have no idea. I was told there are delays and some orders are being pushed weeks into March. Could he tell me anything about my order…no of course!
I could burn these CDs faster than HP is! What is the problem here? How can they have no information at all! How can they say “here it is! Place your order, give me your money” and then not follow thru. I wonder if I will ever actually get this.
Has anyone actually received a copy yet?
Man, every time HP does something positive and moves one step forward, they have to something stupid like this (delaying shipment of the disks for 3+ weeks for many customers) that negates much of the goodwill they had gained. They really are their own worst enemy.
HP should really just get approval from MS to provide a for-fee download option for this (Digital River or whatever). After all, it’s not like someone won’t be ripping these to ISO images and posting them somewhere on the Internet anyway, so at least save everyone a lot of time and effort by just making them available quickly and easily.
I just went to the HP download site for the EX470 and they’ve posted a new download: HP MediaSmart Server – Data Vault 3.0. There isn’t any description. What’s this? Is it the 3.0 software? It’s a 37MB file. Any ideas?
@Chuck
I believe the Data Valut is a business-focused versionof the EX49x that doesn’t have the “home/media” features of the MSS EX49x, but it probably has the rest of the 3.0 software. The file you mentioned is probably just an update for that model. In any case, it isn’t anything the 47x or 48x users want.
Darkon,
Then I wonder if HP made a mistake by placing it in the MSS 470 section of updates?
I don’t know, but if it was a mistake would anyone be even remotely surprised? After all, the 3.0 disks were listed under something other than Windows Server, which makes no sense at all. Sigh.
That update, judging from the version number, looks like a v3.0 update. The same update appears on the EX495 download page. Maybe this should be something we look into if and when we ever get to go to v3.0.
Yes, I let myself get all excited that they wanted some money from me for the v3.0 software. I even looked up the differences in shipping and it said somewhere in there that it would ship something like the next if order by…
So I upgraded the shipping to faster delivery and thought that it would ship like it said the “next business day…”.
Of course, I get an email saying that estimated ship date would be 3/16/10.
They could have at least waited to charge my card until they were *really* ready-to-ship.
*** sigh ***
I know most HP fanboys disagree with my assesment of the HP MSS’s. Don’t take my word for it. Before you waste another $30, I’d suggest reading this review.
Here’s the best review of the ex495 I’ve seen yet. It accurately documents the software problems it has.
http://computershopper.com/networking/reviews/hp-mediasmart-server-ex495
I think Gary has missed a fundamental point. I can appreciate and understand all the hard work and research he seems to have spent time on however, if you don’t want to do all that, if you don’t want to tinker, if you want a box that plugs in, turns on and you’re done then you don’t buy a Windows Home Server, let alone an HP MediaSmart Server.
Every company has it’s “fan boys”. I am certainly not an HP fan boy but I am a MediaSmart fan. It is certainly not perfect but, according to the same review that Gary mentioned, it offers some unique features, far more functionality than your basic NAS. Add to that all the add-ins that provide additional services and you have something special. There is no other consumer grade device that offers anywhere near the functionality of an HP MediaSmart Home Server
Yes, all this added functionality requires some attention but to be frank that is exactly what I like, that is exactly what this is all about. I have thoroughly enjoyed the hours and hours I have spent working my EX475 getting more and more from it. The services and functionality I can provide to my friends and family over my local network and the Internet is pretty incredible considering the investment.
If you don’t want to tinker, if you don’t want to experiment, if you don’t want to sweat out the OS version upgrade delays, then you shouldn’t by a Home Server. You should get some generic, white bread NAS. Plug it in, turn it on and go about your day.
I disagree with Gary AND Mark. I don’t think the MSS is a complete turd, but I also think having to spend hours and hours getting decent performance out of it is ridiculous. I think when you kiss a company’s butt even when they are obviously dropping the ball it only encourages them to continue doing things the way they’re doing them.
Agreed Scott. HP has dropped the ball. I hope I didn’t sound like I was kissing HP’s butt (not good!). I just enjoy tinkering.
We have all probably received this message by now (see below). Define diligently! I think HP’s definition may not be the same as ours.
“Dear Customer:
At HP our products are designed, manufactured and serviced, to meet our high standards.
We apologize for the possible delay in delivery of your service; however, we are diligently working on expediting your order.
Service Order Number # XXXXXXXX
Model # 589796-ZH1
Serial # NSN
I am going to wait. I have no choice short of dropping $500 or more for the EX49X. There is simply nothing any of us can do about it.
I would have rather seen HP not start taking orders until they were actually ready to deploy the product.
Regardless of any of our comments made about quality, bugs or whatever about the product; when you take the money from someone for a product, you better be sure you have a product to deliver. Otherwise, I believe this is awfully close to becoming fraudulent actions. I saw nothing mentioned in placing my order or afterward about there being any form of production delays or that the product wasn’t ready. So what exactly is HP selling? If nothing else, I guess they should be calling these orders “pre-sales” for a product that isn’t available yet.
So, I’m saying that when HP starts taking orders for the upgrade product that they just crossed a new boundary (legally and/or ethically, I’m not sure).
Addmittedly, I’m not a lawyer, but I really doubt there is any real legal issue here…if there were, then every company that had an unexpected delay with delivering a product woulg be getting sued. They didn’t actually promise you that you would get the disk on a particular date and even “overnight shipping” doesn’t mean you’ll get it the next day, just that you’ll get it the day after it ships.
But there is certainly a business and customer relations issue. Quite possibly knowing they wouldn’t be able to hit their last announced ship date February, they probably chose to pre-empt the well-deserved HP bashing they would get by missing yet another date and instead announce it was “ready” and start taking orders with fingers crossed that the planets would align and they would be able to ship before the end of the month or first week of March. Even if they were a bit late, they could blame the delay on the disk duplicator.
But here we are entering the second week of March and as far as I can tell nobody has received their disks…or even had them shipped yet.
HP is like inseparable siamese twin brothers where one is a great guy that everyone likes while the other is really unpleasant and is always screwing up what the good brother is doing.
Well, I do see an expected delivery date posted on my order. It’s not the same as I have seen others post. I think it was March 16th. For them to put such specific dates and every order having one that seems to be tailored to a date by I am assuming when they ordered it and how backlogged they may be on the fulfillment of those orders. If HP are taking orders for a product that they cannot produce as some has suggested for various reasons, then I think this does start to imply some potential legal boundaries as too why it is OK to sell it.
I have seen software sold as “Pre-Order” to a specific release date. However, this usually means that production has already been fast at work packaging up the software, stocking warehouses, running promotional ads for a product that actually exists and there is no chance of slippage of that release date. That does not seem to be the case here. I’m hearing that it is still in the development/testing phase without an actual finalized product. It is possible that I miss-understood some of the information that I have been reading, but I think that HP better get it together. This issue is directly impacting the individual consumer, but a good many of those consumers also work in positions within corporation that could impact commercial sales. I have seen trends like this make itself apparent throughout a company’s culture. These are all signs of a company that has lost its direction, its mojo, etc. Signs like this are just like pre-cursors to major potential company suicide. There have been many of fine companies to find themselves tumbling down the slippery slope of their own doings. Take Toyota for example. Quality??? Yes, we fixed it! NOT!!! *** sigh ***
We Got Served is reporting “European HP MediaSmart Server Owners Start Receiving v3.0 Update”
I am getting fed up. I placed my order the 25th and paid for overnight shipping. The overseas markets could not even order the upgrade for almost a week after that and they are already receiving their CDs. Here in the US I (we) are still waiting. The MediaSmart group has a canned response to calls about some mysterious people that will call me (who knows when) to tell me the status of my perpetual delayed order. No one at HP knows who these mystery people are, just that I will get a call someday.
HP has stonewalled every attempt I have made to discover the status of my order. The only person that offered to help asked if I wanted to cancel my order as that was all he could do.
I can’t believe this is happening. I have always said I am a patient person but patience has its limits.
has anyone gotten the disk yet. I called hp and they transferred me to 3 departments. and then i hung up.
@ayoung:
I made it through about 6 telephone forwards and finally got to the right team of people. (what an ordeal… about 20 minutes, i was nearing hangup several times, especially with their voice prompt system, yuk).
Anyway, the only thing the guy could tell me was that their supplier had back-ordered the disc’s and that he expected that I would receive mine on or about (with lots of caveat’s and no guarantees) March 23rd.
He asked me if I had paid for express shipping, I didn’t, but I think he would have canceled that for me if I had, saving some money. He mentioned that no charges would go to my card until the order was ready for shipment.
Finally, he told me that if I had to get back in touch with them, to dial the HP support number in the order confirmation, go to “Tech Support” at the first prompt, then “Something Else” at the second prompt, then “A mediasmart server” at the third prompt.
Hope that helps some of you. This is really more painful than it needs to be.
So I got a phone call today from the mystery HP department doing the CD distribution. I was told my new expected delivery date is the 15th. Assuming I actually receive my CDs next week as promised then it looks like there really is someone trying to catch up on this.
I’ll believe it when I see it though. Over the course of the last few months we have all come to learn that what HP says doesn’t necessarily come true.
Hopefully my next post will be more positive. I normally don’t post all this negative stuff.
For those of you who are concerned with being charged for a product you have yet to receive by HP. I suggest you check your account transactions. When I ordered my update a transaction with HP did appear and today I check my account and its as if the transaction never took place.
I only checked my account because someone posted a message saying they would not be charged until HP actually shipped the update discs. So if your concerned about being charged for product you have not received then go and check your account and you may find no record of the transaction or you may see a credit back to your account.
This doesn’t make things any better but it does show HP as having honorable business practices. Unfortunately their suppliers are late in delivering the discs so its become a logistics nightmare for everyone including HP. Its just a bad situation for all.
COMP1962, You are telling me this is REALLY a nightmare for all!!! I have just been notified that my order which was supposed to be delivered today is now not EXPECTED till the 30th March (If I am lucky!!!). This will be almost 5 weeks after my order was placed. To make things worse they are charging Canadian customers and arm and leg for this update in comparison to the cost of ordering in the US. $59 is not comparable to the US cost!!! All in all the CUSTOMER SERVICE on this order is completely NON Existent!!!! Maybe HP will learn from this, but i doubt it!!! Great way to loose repeat business I say.
@ Paul, They way HP is processing orders to our Canadian friends is horrible because I think they could of used the United States Postal Service to send the updates just as they do for the US Customers. Maybe I just do not understand the logic behind that decision.
As for me…..well maybe I am different them most in that I refuse to allow this situation get the best of me. Up until recently I use to look forward to checking my mail to see if the discs had arrived and yes I was bummed out when they were not there. Now I just check the mail and the past couple days there has not even been a thought of the discs arriving or not. For me I will get them when they arrive. On the other hand my EX470’s are no longer my primary servers but I still use them and they still server me well and for that I am greatful.
I recently received my EX490 and it was shipped with 3.0 Wonderful, except I am sittiing here at home now trying to work out how to stope the Twonky from consuming 100% of my CPU. I have large libraries.
How do i actually stop the twonky?
@ Denis – logon to your server using the Console Connector and disable it or if you recently upgraded and installed patch 2 then check out Alexes guide at the link below:
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010/03/04/how-to-fix-twonky-issues-in-3-0-patch-2/
I have officially give up. Time to move on.
I received an HP shipment noticed for what has to be the v3 software for my ex485. According to the tracking information that was given, I’ll be receiving something on Monday, March 22nd. The weird thing is, I don’t currently see a charge against my credit card. Everything looks like it is to be the very long awaited v3 software for my ex485. I guess that I’ll know in another day what is actually in this shipment from HP. I’m sure confused, anxious, but not trying to get my hopes up too high.
As a follow-up to my recent post. I have just received today from FedEx the disks for V3.0 w/patch1 for the HP EX480 Series. Obviously, I haven’t had a chance to do anything with them but they are in my hands.
I have 3 disks labeled “Software Installation Disc”, “Server Recovery Disk”, and “PC Restore Disc”. All 3 disks then say “Version 3.0 Upgrade with Patch 1″ and “HP EX480 Series”.
So the next question is whether they work or not? I look forward to giving them a try.
I’m installing now – it took a few mins to get started because HP labeled my disks incorrectly – the labels for the PC Recovery and Server Recovery disks are swapped.
Nice QC there, HP!
I live in the Middle East (working for Microsoft in Dubai) and received my discs via a courier service this morning, upgraded my MediaSmart Server and everything works fine.
Does this mean it’s safe to order, along with a memory upgrade now or are things still a little tense around the mediasmart world ?
Chris, this article is 6 months old, the 3.0 update has been available for a while now.
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010/02/23/guide-how-to-upgrade-your-mediasmart-server-to-the-3-0-software-update/
Yay just ordered if and £10.. bargain. Now just need some more ram. If only I had another unit so I could brace a CPU upgrade and more RAM..
Mind you I have at least 6 chassis behind me right now just need a x64 CPU to beta test VAIL. Does it show i’ve been off the radar a while lol
thanks for the reply.
I guess you have been off the radar, here’s how to install Vail onto any MediaSmart Server.
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010/04/26/how-to-install-windows-home-server-vail-on-the-hp-mediasmart-server/
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