Ok I've had my 490 for about a month now and have been nothing but frustrated with it....I'm on an iMac running Snow Leopard and Media Collector usually hangs and I have now resorted to just copying the files over manually to the server...

my question I have is when I read stuff in the Wiki it talks about using RDC to log in to the WHS...and I should see a start menu which I could use to install iTunes for instance instead all I get is the MediaSmart dumbed down interface?


What am I missing here?

There are known issues with Media Collector and Snow Leopard. You're probably just going to have to wait until HP sorts that out. Honestly I don't see a lot of advantages to putting media files on the Mac anyway, the whole idea of the MSS is that you can store all of your files on it and then just access them or stream them through the network.

I store all of my movies, videos and photos on the MSS and point iTunes, etc, to it. It works very well. It's also set up so that if I download something new in iTunes it just shows up on the MSS.

As to the RDP issue, the MSS software sets it up so that it only opens up the console mode when connecting to the home server. To work around this you need to have Remote Desktop installed on the Mac and in your Applications Folder.

Then you need to open Remote Desktop and make a NEW Remote Desktop connection profile for connection to the EX490. Choose the appropriate resolution, etc, and put in the IP address of the home server. You can connect to the desktop without any issues this way.

Realize that 99% of users (Mac or Windows) will never connect to the full desktop and would find it confusing or dangerous to do so. This is why the HP software for the MSS on the Mac (and on Windows) sets things up so that you only get console access normally. Going into the full desktop and installing applications and services is sort of an advanced thing to be doing.

I've had several WHS boxes that I've used with my Macs and I think it's great. It backs all of the machines (Mac and Windows) in the house up effortlessly, streams and converts all of my media, runs my DC++ client, runs my Squeezebox Server and gives me easy remote access to my files and network from any computer with an Internet connection.

Sorry you are frustrated but I think you are in the minority.

jmpage2,

I think there are good reasons to keep your media on the Mac. For starters... I think it is safest to keep the media in one place that you know will get backed up. I think that it is best to have the most important data backed up both onsite, and offsite. I am dissatisfied with the offsite backup options of MSS... as Amazon S3 is quite expensive as your backup sets get moderate to large. I do the following:

I store all of my media on a single desktop computer (currently a PC... but soon (12/25/09) a Mac. We know this is the "master location for all of our data. We then back up as follows (in order of most importance):

1) Mozy. For $4.95/month all of my data (photos, music, docs, etc) is backed up offsite
2) Local Backup: For PC's... the MSS and for Mac's a 2TB Time Capsule
3) Media Collection of every machine to the MSS

I have talked to the executives at Mozy, and hope to get Mozy for MSS some day. If that happens, then I would change my backup strategy. In the mean time, Mozy still offers a very inexpensive ($4.95 for unlimited data) and secure method of backing up all of my data offsite as long as we have the discipline to store all our data on the single home machine (we do).

I have been using an Apple 2TB TimeCapsule (rather than my MSS) for TimeMachine backup of my Macs. This is partially due to the issues people have had setting up TM support on their MSS. For me... I just didn't want to deal with the issues.

I do use the MSS to backup all of the PCs in the house. Right now (for the next month), that includes our primary PC with the master copy of our data. I have added our daughter's (who live away from home) to our MSS as well... so whenever they visit, their machines get backed up. I will be doing a restore for one daughter this weekend, who would have otherwise lost everything.

I am really looking forward to have media collection working on Macs w/ Snow Leopard soon. That, combined with moving our primary machine to a Mac (27" iMac i7 2TB)... we will have:

1) Full data backup on Mozy
2) Full machine local Time Machine Backup on the Time Capsule.
3) Media backup on the MSS

Hence... Our most important data will be backed up in 3 places... and we will have full automatic backup both onsite and offsite... plus we will have full backups of each PC and Mac laptop. For us... I think this situation will be ideal.

/Jim

_________________
My family website: www.pappas.me

jmpage,

The reason I have everything on the iMac upstairs is for ease of use at least for right now...I have all of my playlists setup right now on the iMac and have not transitioned all the songs over to the server(something I did today with a manual copy of around 20k songs...I was really looking for this to be turn key in terms of copying all my media over

oh well...anyway so I have tried just opening RDC from applications and have tried everything to login administrator and then the server password...or even the account I've created...when I login that way I get an error message that says I must first give this account permission to log on via terminal services but I can't find that option anywhere...

When you log in remotely to the console it must be via the administrator account.

Sometimes when I go to log in via RDC I see that the software has pre-pended a slash in front of the login handle;

i.e.; \administrator

If your log in credentials are correct you should be able to log in. Are you sure you aren't mis-typing your password? You could always install the advanced admin console for WHS and then look at the log viewer and see what it is reporting when you try to log in as Administrator and it fails.

Also, insofar as iTunes and playlists, there are many tutorials out there that teach you how to move your library and/or iTunes database to a network attached storage device like the MSS without having to manually do much at all.

Fair enough Jim. Personally I think that "all you can eat" backup services like Mozy are the devil. They don't back up video files for example. They also don't support block level incremental changes. I do see your point about cost, but I have a lot of skepticism on how long a service can survive that charges $5 a month and lets people back up hundreds of Gigs of data.

Remember also that on the MSS your data is already being duplicated between drives so if you have a catastrophic failure shortly after uploading a new batch of photos, etc, you will likely be protected on the MSS due to drive extender, whereas on the single PC/Mac solution you would potentially be out of luck (although Time Machine does do a pretty good job of keeping things up to date).

For me personally it's just a matter of simplicity. Putting all of the media on the MSS means just one box to administer, manage, and leave powered on all of the time.

Jungle Disc will have their new WHS solution out soon (I hope) and I expect, while it will cost a bit more than Mozy, it will be a far superior cloud based backup solution. It will also offer the ability to do block level incremental backups which means it should be able to deal with large time machine volume changes without recopying the entire file, etc.

jmpage2

I was typing the password in incorrectly however with that corrected it still just dumps me into the normal HP front end...

if I type in \\[server ip]\software I get an error....

so now what am I doing wrong?

You need to go into the RDC application menu before you connect and change the preferences for your connection so that the checkbox for forcing the console connection are unchecked. You can also simply create a new profile for the server and make the necessary changes (set resolution for the remote desktop, etc).

If you do a search of my posts in this forum you will find me asking a similar question which received a very detailed response from another member who provide a long list of instructions on how to edit RDC connections.

Places like Mozy seem to run their business on the heuristics that most people will NOT be backing up several hundred gigabytes of data. I'll bet that the average paid account is well under 50G (probably under 20GB).

Mozy does in fact back up video files just fine. Personally, I think it is prudent to backup personal videos (ex: the kids growing up)... but I do not think it is necessary to back up production videos (ex: ripped movies).

The biggest reason that I like Mozy... is because it is an inexpensive way to back up all of my "DATA"... for a very small price, in a fully automated operation. If my house burns down, or is a victim of a local tweeker doing a smash and grab... I know that my irreplaceable data is recoverable from the cloud. By far, my pictures are the #1 priority. It really would not bother me to buy a new computer, install application etc... and then re-download all of my data from the cloud.

Obviously, as a MSS owner I like local backup as well... but if I could choose only one, I would choose automated cloud based backup.

/Jim

_________________
My family website: www.pappas.me