PC User: Time Capsule or MediaSmart Server

[Exen]

My apologies in advance if this is a topic that has been brought up much; however, I did not find one.

I am in need of an external hard drive and since Apple recently updated their new TC, this has piqued my interest. For those of you who are Windows Vista PC users, does the new TC work well for you? I'm sure it does, but I wanted to ask the users first. Actually, for any PC TC user: how has your experience been?

The other HDD I'm looking into is the HP MediaSmart Server--if anyone has any input on this too, that would be great.

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[Aegelward]

The Mediasmart might be a better solution, i heard that windows home server has become a far more stable platform than it was initially, and there seems to be quite an active community of plugin developers such as this site

To be honest, as a Mac user, I'm tempted to get a Home Server platform based network storage unit

 

[Exen]

Thanks a lot for the reply. After doing a bit more research, I think I will have to go with the MediaSmart server since I am a PC user and not sure when I'll be getting a mac. Well, I suppose this thread can be closed! Thanks again!

 

[bielen]

The Mediasmart might be a better solution, i heard that windows home server has become a far more stable platform than it was initially, and there seems to be quite an active community of plugin developers such as this site

To be honest, as a Mac user, I'm tempted to get a Home Server platform based network storage unit

I have read that while The MediaSmart can backup a drive using Time Machine, it cannot do a full restore. You supposedly have to manually copy files. If this is true, this is a big flaw in the MediaSmart. Can any MediaSmart user confirm?

 

[bobnugget]

I have read that while The MediaSmart can backup a drive using Time Machine, it cannot do a full restore. You supposedly have to manually copy files. If this is true, this is a big flaw in the MediaSmart. Can any MediaSmart user confirm?

Yes, this is true. Also, I've heard it can corrupt the Time Machine backups (not good! This might just be people getting confused with the Time Machine sparse image over SMB= corruption issue though). I haven't encountered this yet.

 

[pmcmvp]

people that have the hp mediasmart server, whats the best way to connect it to your netork? ie, ethernet? usb? enough to stream ripped dvds?

 

[rgarjr]

Gigabit Ethernet

 

[pmcmvp]

Gigabit Ethernet

is it fast when network is loaded? ive read the transfer data rate is much slower, anyways if it can stream movies without any issues, im okay with it