I came across this listing on ebay for HP EX495 for $499 + $25 S&H. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230388067273

Appears to be an excellent deal. I am in no way associated with the seller. I just came across this while randomly searching and thought of sharing with the forum.

I'll also add that I purchased my EX490 from these guys and it arrived in 2 days.

I just noticed that he raised the price by $10. I got in on this deal too.
I wonder how they can sell a brand new machine at less than MSRP or less than what other sites charge??

I am considering purchasing one, but have a concern.

I notice that one of the graphics state that it is a product of China. Do all of the Media servers have this? Even the ones bought through major retailers or HP themselves? I was wondering if this is an inferior clone.

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Booyah! Web Hosting
Owner/President
http://www.booyahhosting.com

They all say that, they are manufactured in China and must have that logo.

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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?

Thank you very much for the quick reply. I think I'm going to purchase one.

_________________
Booyah! Web Hosting
Owner/President
http://www.booyahhosting.com

Let us know how you like it!

_________________
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?

I ordered one of these yesterday while the price was still $499. Use MS Bing search engine and cash back account to save another 8% on it. I've received no further communication from the seller since winning the auction but will provide some feedback when the unit ships and arrives.

It's shipped! Says delivery on October 17th, does Fedex even do Saturday delivery?

yes, for standard fed ex if the shipper selected and paid for Saturday delivery. If shipped via fed ex home, they do Saturday delivery as part of normal services.

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HP MSS EX490 with Intel E6300
4 GB RAM
7 TB Drive Storage

MediaSmartServer.net Wiki, it's loaded with helpful information about WHS and the HP MediaSmart Server.

It now says delivery is Monday. Boo!

I pulled the trigger on Friday for one of these from the same ebay seller. Mine is scheduled for Wednesday delivery via fedex. I am replacing a EX48x so I will be enabling some of the media capabilities as well as using the WHS for some other serving duties. I am hopeful that this machine will set me up well, with the addition of another 2 GB of RAM, for the next release of WHS which I understand will be a 64 bit OS. getting this unit for almost $200 less than suggested retail is a good buy in my book.

I also hope that this can take the next major WHS release but I wouldn't hold my breath. HP has a pretty rotten track record of supporting the previous generation machines when new software comes out.

Additionally Vail (the new WHS) will require an upgrade license, so I'm not sure if HP will even bother to sell the new software to previous owners.