HP EX475 MediaSmart Server

In terms of pricing, you could argue that £499 will buy you a decent PC these days (if not as much storage). But in the company of NAS boxes and other Home Servers, the MediaSmart stands up well. An equivalent NAS device would be cheaper, but would lack the sheer level of expandability and polish, particularly when you consider the upgrade potential of the operating system itself.

HP's add-on software is highly worthwhile when it comes to setup and day-to-day usefulness. And while some parts of the system still have the potential to fox the non-technical user (most notably remote access configuration), most of the complexity has successfully been hidden away.

In conjunction with the superbly designed chassis, this is the most accomplished implementation of Windows Home Server yet - we just hope HP can cut the power consumption in future versions.

Author: Ross Burridge