The feature makes it easy to upload an entire album directly from the NAS. The PhotoPublisher is a useful feature as most people who are into sharing photos would likely have an account with one of those photo Web sites. This is very different from many NAS servers we've reviewed, such as the Synology DS209+, that comes with a photo-sharing service of its own and the photos are stored on the server itself. The features allows for uploading photos stored on the NAS directly to popular photo-sharing sites including Snapfish, Flickr, Picasa, and Facebook. Like the LX195, the EX495 share the unique photo management feature of HP NAS servers, which is the Web-based PhotoPublisher application, which can be launched from the HP MediaSmart Server Control Center. We didn't run into any problems setting up on OSX 10.5, nor Windows, and were ready to go within about 30 minutes.
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To use the Server's support for Time Machine, you'll need to install the "HP MediaSmart Server" software included on the first DVD. If you use Mac, the server will automatically appear on the Finder.
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Once setup, the EX195 can be accessed via either the HP MediaSmart Server Control Center software, by browsing through Windows Explorer, or any network browsers. Note that this is a time-consuming process. Just plug the server into your router and run the Software Installation Disc on any of the PCs connected to the network and follow the onscreen instruction. The process of getting the EX495 up and running is easy and straightforward. It will recover the server from a backup if need be. Finally, the third DVD is something you want to have, yet never want to have to use. The second DVD restores a network computer from a backup image stored on the server. The server comes with three DVDs, labeled "Software Installation Disc", "PC Restore Disc," and "Server Recovery Disc." The first covers installing the operating system onto the main hard drive. Also, on the back, is the on/off switch, which is so sensitive, you could accidentally turn the server off just by lightly touching on it. They don't support anything else, such as a printer or USB camera. These ports are used solely for additional storage. On the back of the server are another three USB ports and an eSATA port. Also, on the front are a USB port and three other LED lights that show the overall condition of the server, the network connection, and the power-on indicator. For example, blue indicates the drive is in good shape and ready, while red signifies there may be an error. The door of each bay incorporates a sleek-looking, color-changing LED that indicates the status of the hard drive. Aside from the drive that includes the OS, the rest can be swapped out on the fly, one at a time, without turning off the server. Each bay comes with hard-drive tray that can be removed without tools, making installing or removing an existing hard drive an easy job. This drive contains the server's operating system, which will have to be installed during the setup process. The four front-access hard-drive bays are stacked vertically with the bottom bay occupied by the server's included 1.5TB main hard drive. The HP MediaSmart Server EX495 is shaped like a mini tower computer. The benefits of this alternative include the fact that the server can be controlled like a Windows computer and, in case of hardware failure, the hard drives can be removed and put into any Windows computers to recover the data-something much harder to do with hard drives formatted using the Linux file system. Windows Home Server has slowly become the standard for NAS server operating systems, over Linux. The only difference is that it doesn't include a video-out, nor does it have mouse and keyboard support. At its core, the EX495 is a Windows computer, powered by a Pentium dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, running the Home version of Windows Server 2003.