Hi, what is the procesor on a stock ex485? I've had mine for a while now, and there's an opportunity for me to get the EX490 which is dual core for a good price from a friend, so is it worth it to upgrade to 490? What do you think?

Thanks

IIRC the ex485/7 and the ex490 used the same Celeron single core 2.2ghz processor. It was the ex495 that had the e5200 dual core processor.

ohh i see.. is the only difference just a larger hard drive between the 2 models?

I believe that to be correct, yes. I bid adieu to the Celly and put a dual-core Pentium E5300 in my EX487 (same as is in my EX490) and kicked both servers up to 4 GB. They handle WHS 2011 nicely and I am very happy with how both servers are performing.

If you want to upgrade the processor in an EX48x, it's not as straightforward as you might think. Some BIOS hacking is required, and you'll probably need console access so consider investing in the debug cable, which is discussed all over this site. I have debug cables on both of my servers and that is money very well spent. The HP MediaSmart is no longer the headless horseman.

_________________
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

Another difference is the he EX48x does not support/have an esata port multiplier where the EX49x does. They both have esata ports, but the 49x will let you add a 5 bay esata enclosure and it will see each drive individually, the 48x can't see each drive individually.

What is the s-spec of the e5300 you used to upgrade the ex485? I have an e5300 here doing absolutely nuttin. Might have a use for it after all.

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HPjunkie:

Here's the Intel spec:

http://ark.intel.com/products/35300/Int ... 00-MHz-FSB)

Under this you'll see a "See SPEC Details" link for the Intel VT-x, which leads you to this:

http://ark.intel.com/products/35300/Int ... 00-MHz-FSB)#ordering

In both my EX487 and EX490, I have the SLGTL processor, which is the only one of the three E5300 variants that has VT-x, which means you could use the processor to run Hyper-V.

_________________
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