Hey guys, so I've been away for a while and ever since I purchased my EX490 it has had very minimal use. 95% of it's life has spent turned off due to not having a wired internet connection at home. I pop into this forum every so often and always get surprised by some of the threads posted, such as these:

Tip to promote long life EX490
490 Motherboard repair

I know it's not a huge thing, but is the EX490 worth keeping if it's still in fairly good condition? I've read and some people have mentioned to have the server connected to a APC UPS to help it and reduce any power related issues. I've been reading about the HP ProLiant MicroServers and they seem to be a huge improvement over this EX line.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1555868

I am stumped, I don't know if it's worth keeping and moving over to a ProLiant or not. I don't need to have something fail and have no ability to restore data.


/rant

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EX 490 with 4GB of memory, E8400 and 8TB of drives.

Personally I have not had a lick of trouble with my EX490. I've had it about 2½ years and I've only had one problem with it--my own add-in Home Server SMART 2012 announced yesterday evening that the system HDD developed its first bad sector.

You cannot really attribute a bad sector (or a bad disk) as being a fault of the server. The server has been on 24/7/365 and it just works. Plain and simple. I bought a used EX487 last summer and it too is working great. I've upgraded the CPUs and memory in both--they both came with single-core Celeron processors, which are sadly under-powered, and since I wanted to install WHS 2011 I thought the could both use the extra memory boost. (If and when the system drive does die (no data on it), I will probably drop an Intel SSD in there.)

Power supplies -- I've replaced more faulty power supplies in the last few years than I've replaced failing hard drives (this doesn't include older HDDs I deliberately killed to do SMART testing). I use UPSes for everything, and even then I've seen PSUs die. I think a lot of stock PSUs are cheaply and poorly made and if you keep a computer a good number of years, there's a reasonable chance it's PSU will conk out on you.

I had a Dell XPS 710 PSU die just a few days shy of its second birthday. My wife's older Dell desktop PSU died a couple days after this past Christmas--and took out the mobo with it. A couple older desktops I no longer own both had replacement PSUs in them

A good rule of thumb for ANY computer is to make sure the room in which it resides has decent climate control--no excess heat or humidity, you ensure the case remains clear of excess dust and if possible use a good UPS. AC power is known for instability so favor a UPS that does power tuning.

That all said, unless your EX490 needs a major litany of upgrades like a full compliment of HDDs, a CPU upgrade and a memory upgrade, I say fire it up and run with it. If it does need a ton of upgrades, you might be better off parting with it here on MSS.net or eBay and using the proceeds to upgrade to a MicroServer.

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Matt Sawyer
Owner, Dojo North Software, LLC

HP EX490, 4GB, E5300, 15TB - Server 2012 - Sharing and Streaming
HP EX487, 4GB, E5300, 13TB - Server 2012 Essentials - Backups

I have extensive time with every model of MSS and the EX490 series are the nicest, quietest, most upgradeable, and most reliable of the entire line. The only disadvantage is that the hardware is proprietary and the used market is the only place to get replacement parts (except for the power supply which you can buy from a vendor).

Did you read both of those topics you mention? In one the user didn't actually have a failed motherboard or provide links to the supposed stories he'd heard of them "crapping out". The other topic is about best practices for keeping his server running well. Yes, hardware can fail, but I don't believe the MSS is significantly more fragile than any other piece of equipment.

Edit: The EX49x servers are likely to have higher performance than the Microserver due to the slow, non-upgradeable processor in the Microserver.

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Alex Kuretz
Remote Notification: Monitoring and alerting for your Home Server via email, Twitter, text message, RSS, push notifications, and on your Mac desktop
Have you tried our Add-Ins?

Thanks guys and I do agree yakuza, the ProLiant MicroServer is limited with its processor so that is a bit of a downfall in my eyes.

I have always planned to upgrade my EX490 to the max of 4GB and put in a stronger yet safe processor but as I occasionally browse this and other forums I got worried that after putting in 200.00(+/-) of upgrades, that it may fail and I am sol.

I do like how the ProLiant Microserver has the ability to have a Remote Access Card (RAC) installed. I also wish HP would have at least provided support for the newer WHS OS for the EX MSS series. I just always have more faith when the actual vendor gets it done then 3rd party's and such create their over variants and versions.

Thanks for keeping my mind in place on this ex490

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EX 490 with 4GB of memory, E8400 and 8TB of drives.

E8400 puchased from a member off the [H] forums.

Patriot 1x4gb stick purchased from:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/140670496274?ssP ... 1439.l2649


So I'm guessing the improvement with the new processor and memory should be quite noticeable?

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EX 490 with 4GB of memory, E8400 and 8TB of drives.

Let me know how the memory upgrade goes as far as performance improvement. I upgraded my CPU to the E8200 shortly after purchasing my EX495 in late 2009. The memory upgrade was too pricey back then, but now could be a good time.

(Update: The heck with it, I found a used Patriot 4GB stick on eBay for $45 and went for it)

As far as reliability, mine has been on 24/7/365 since November 2009. I just had my first issue last week, the system drive went south and had to be replaced. Other than that, it just works. I use it daily for storage, backups of five laptops/desktops, and video and music streaming. Probably the best computing investment I've ever made....

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Tech News, Great Buys, Reviews & More....

Mike, how was the processor upgrade when you completed it? did you notice a difference between the factory and the E8200?

You got a good price on the ram, I will update this forum once my stuff comes in. I've been wanting to upgrade this for so long and I agree the price for the ram has dropped a bit so I am hoping the new processor and the 4gb memory will make it a completely new machine.

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EX 490 with 4GB of memory, E8400 and 8TB of drives.

The processor made a bit of difference, but the RAM made the biggest boost to my EX490 with WHS v1. Upgrading to WHS 2011 made an even more dramatic change in performance - it just flat out performs better in every way. Without drive extender and all the HP layered on stuff, it's a much leaner install. Even in adding Drive Bender back it's still noticeably faster than WHS v1.

I'm in agreement with Eric, the processor upgrade seems secondary now that I've upgraded the memory. Mind you, I have no regrets regarding the CPU upgrade but wish that I'd done the memory sooner. I just installed it this morning, the console is incredibly snappy and the RAM utilization is running around 20% under moderate streaming loads.

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Follow Me On Twitter: ThatGeekGuy
Tech News, Great Buys, Reviews & More....

Thanks Eric and Mike,
I got my patriot memory last week and installed it. I haven't used much of the server for a year or so(what a shame) so I can't notice any huge improvements at this time. I know logging onto the console is still very slow on the EX490 but I am pretty confident that when the E8400 arrives and I install it, everything will work hand in hand and run much smoother and quicker.

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EX 490 with 4GB of memory, E8400 and 8TB of drives.

Success!!! After waiting 2 weeks for a processor that wasn't sent out, I found a e8400 BNIB for 65.00!!!!!

I picked it up, installed it and the server is so much snappier. RDP loads up instantly but I do notice when I am logged on as RDP and open up the WHS Console, the console itself takes maybe 15-30ish seconds to start up.

Operating the console is much much quicker when I do have it open. The temperature within my first restart was about 45 celcius and after the 2nd restart it is about 47 (PECI) celcius.

I do wonder if I should have picked up a E8600, being 3.3ghz compared to the E8400 at 3.00ghz.


Any suggestions on what else I can do to this little unit?

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EX 490 with 4GB of memory, E8400 and 8TB of drives.