Initial thoughts on the HP MediaSmart PC

Written by: Tiffany Joyce

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had the privilege to play around with a MediaSmart PC from HP. The machine is awesome with a lot of cool features. The most compelling aspect of this machine is the backing up functionality. At the moment I have over 20,000 photos and uploading them to Flickr or any other service is a little out of the question due to bandwidth and time.

Below, I have outlined a few of my initial thoughts on the server to give you an idea of what I like/dislike.

Dislike:

1. If you aren’t a little tech savvy you shouldn’t really buy this machine. It was a little difficult to get started with the software needing updates and when using it with a Mac the experience wasn’t exactly seamless.
2. When you first setup the server it must be setup from a PC. This to me was a limitation of the system and was a real pain in our house given that we predominantly use Mac’s.

Like:

1. Once you get the server setup it’s very easy to get a backup going and scheduled.
2. It connects to HP Photosync that will allow you to automatically upload your photos to HP’s service.
3. Very small machine with tons of storage and very quiet, so you don’t hear it churning away in the corner.
   

What do you currently use to backup your photos?

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