Hello, My MSS first forum

All of you have so much good info to provide and easy to understand. I so glad i found this site. But it seem im a little to late , well not really.

Im not sure what to chose. HP ProLiant or HP EX???

I love the form factor of the EX but don’t want it to be under powered for my use. But the backup feature seems amazing. Reading some post about Vail. It really hard to decide to wait or I should be fine for now and work my way up as I learn from the EX models. Just want a little push in helping me chose the right option and model.

I do allot of mkv and blue ray movie and itune music stream. Just want to be able to share around the house and backup so i wont lose my data for years to come. I know im new but just want to express and reach out for a little help.

CPulse,
In my humble opinion, EX495 is a great machine but like everything else, you will need to decide what is best for your requirements. Only reason I choose EX495 is for its Mac Add-ins. Other than that you can probably (dare I say) build a box or buy a box like HP Proliant and setup WHS on your own. You will find lots of very insightful posts on this site

Like you, I use iTunes for sharing the music and video around the house (on AppleTV and airport Express). I removed FireFly and Twonky from EX495. There seems to be a software on EX495 for photo sharing but I have not yet used it.

If you want to use WHS mainly for backup, then EX495 is a wonderful little box. Out of the box, it does support lot of things and you dont need to touch it. If you want to do other things with WHS beside backup and considering a DIY solution, it may be worth the wait. I am under the impression WHS Vail will be 64 bit - means it can support more than 4GB RAM. I would have preferred to use the Proliant home brew with powerful CPU and RAM except it did not support Mac backups.

Hope it helps.

_________________
MSS: HP EX495 (removed FireFly, Twonky; using full iTunes)
Client1: AppleTV
Client2: Win7 Home Premium (Intel Core2 Duo, 4GB RAM, Azuntech X Meridian, Fusion 5RT Gold, 1TB)
Client3: Win7 Prof 32bit
Client4: MacBook Pro
Client5: Mac Mini

GGHTPC,
Thanks for the brain storm. And I think you are right. I’m liking the EX495, but might get a EX490 and upgrade the CPU and maybe get a 4gig mem so when Vail come it can use the extra juice.
I would even get a lower model but no where to find them but still looking. When you say Mac Add-in which ones where you talking about. The EX490 does not use them ?
I’m going to read the guides this weekend and tomshardware on upgrading the cpu too.
Can wait to get my itune setup and ready for this. What are the limit the drives can be on these.

Thank again for the input.