HP have today announced the release of two free add-ins for Windows Home Server. Ok, one new add-in and one update.
HP MEDIASMART EXPANDER FOR TIVO
The first is an update to our previously released TiVo add-in. This update will allow customers to schedule series recordings of their favourite programs and have them automatically copied over to their MediaSmart Server or Data Vault.
You can check out our article here: https://moviesgamesandtech.com/2010/07/13/update-to-hp-mediasmart-expander-for-tivo-add-in-for-windows-home-server/
EASY USB TRANSFER
The second is a new add-in – Easy USB Transfer. Easy USB Transfer will allow the contents from a connected USB drive to be copied directly over to the MediaSmart Server or Data Vault. This capability is a great benefit for customers who routinely create large amounts of data (i.e. a photo or video shoot). Easy USB Transfer can be used as part of their normal workflow to offload the data for editing, backup, or to free up the USB drive for the next job.
Check out our review here: https://moviesgamesandtech.com/2010/07/13/review-of-the-hp-easy-usb-transfer-add-in-for-windows-home-server/
Other things to know about both add-ins is that they will only work with HP MediaSmart Servers running the 3.0 update or later, or the HP DataVault servers.
The add-ins can be found here: http://www.hp.com/united-states/consumer/everyday-computing/mediasmartserver/us/en/index.html
It’s nice to see HP releasing more updates – I wonder if we will see anything else from them before Vail hits the streets? And no, I don’t have a release date, but you have to imagine that HP will be spending a lot of time on the new version of Windows Home Server and less time on the current release. Hopefully I will be proven wrong!
How much time will this Add-In really save? I am at my desk with a USB drive with, let us say, 5 GB of data. To use this Add-In I then need to get up walk to my server (whatever room it may be in) and then plug in the USB drive. Then I need to go back to my desk and get to the HP/web interface. Then I need to initiate the copy process. Now I can shut off my PC, but cannot disconnect the USB drive until I get confirmation that it is completed. Confirmation of course would require me to have a running PC. Do I understand this process correctly?
Conversely, I can just connect the USB drive to my already running PC and drag the files to the Shared Folder. Is this correct? If I am on a wired network, it should not take too much longer. In addition, if I am on a gigabit network it should be faster (overall) since it can copy faster than USB 2.0.
Oh, and most of us are using all of the USB ports on our MSS right?
I am just saying
Yup. A solution in search of a problem as far as I am concerned.