COMPARING THE X310 TO THE X510
The first thing you will probably notice is that the X310 is not as “shiny” as its big brother, the X510. It doesn’t use the same materials, and in fact looks a little “plastic”. You will also notice that the usual 4 drive bay lights are missing from the X310, although there is a number panel on the bottom (see later about this feature). Other than that, looks wise they are very similar.
Feature wise, the media collector, remote media streaming and video conversion features have been removed, but given that the X310 is aimed squarely at small and home businesses, these features are unlikely to be missed by many.
WHATS IN THE BOX
As with the X510 Data Vault, the outer packaging is plain brown.
Inside the box is the X310, a guide, power supply, Ethernet cable and 3 software DVDs.
It is all packaged very well, if you are interested in that sort of thing.
ADDING DRIVES TO THE X310
Adding a drive or drives into the X310 is exactly the same as the previous HP MediaSmart Servers that have multiple drive bays.
You just open the front door, press the button for drive bay, slide out the drive sled, fit the drive in place and then slide the drive sled back into the X310.
USING THE X310
Connecting up the X310 only takes a few seconds and then away you go. As usual you need to install the Windows Home Server Connector software on a computer and then configure the X310 – exactly the same way as any Windows Home Server.
And for those who like to see the screenshots, here you are:
Thanks for the lenghty review. Removing some of the HP software might prove to be a more stable box. Problems with Twonky and media collection has given owners of the EX49x/X510 boxes a unhappy feeling about their purchase. It's buggy.
Looks like from your review, HP put a hold on updating the V3 software for the EX49x/X510 boxes to work on the X31x version, delaying to update Twonky, hence unhappy EX49x/X510 owners.