After reading about my experience with the HP MediaSmart Server, Erica from Axentra (a CANADIAN! company, based in Ottawa, passionate about the connected home) contacted me and asked me if I wanted to trial their HipServ on LaCie Ethernet Home Server product. The HipServ is designed to make it easy to stream content from both Mac and PC machines as well as from UPnP devices - like my Sony Playstation 3.
Ever the sucker for trying out shiny new toys, I said YES and Erica sent me a review unit.
When it arrived, I was impressed by its very tiny footprint. It's essentially the size of a big hardback book - London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd is pretty much the same size. Nice.
Now, I know it's going to sound like exaggeration when I say that the HipServ is the easiest plug and play device I have ever tried. Really, ever? Yes, ever. I plugged it into my router, ran the software config wizard on my MacBook Pro and had it up in running in 15 minutes max. And then I hopped over to Rose's PC, just to see if it saw it (I had uninstalled Windows Home Server after sending back the HP server). Didn't need any software, just the admin password I had set up and the PC saw it as a regular device on the network. W00t!
Messed around with some file sharing and streaming - pics, music and docs - from PC to Mac and back via the HipServ - all good. So nice that you can do it all using native apps on the desktop (Windows Explorer or Mac's Finder). HipServ provides apps as well, but you don't need to use them.
Both my iTunes and Rose's iTunes picked up the HipServ's iTunes server and were able to stream music from it immediately. Nice.
The big test for me is whether or not the PS3 would see it and stream from it. And low and behold, the PS3 had no problems finding it and streaming a video in both .m4v and .mp4. Super nice.
When you get a HipServ, you get a unique web address that you can use for media sharing. I was able to easily set up user accounts and share files with family and friends. This required some router tweaking (you need to know how to allow the FTP protocol though on your router); easier on some routers than on others. Axentra has directions for most routers on their support site so you just have to pay attention and remember to breathe.
The file sharing, of course, works for your own remote access as well. Makes transferring files between home and work computers easy-peasy.
OK, so here's the tricky bit.
A few days after everything was humming along, my PS3 did a software update and seemed to do something weird to the video wrapper codec. Axentra responded very promptly to my questions and pushed out a software update to my HipServ that was still in development. It mostly solved the problem, but I've been only able to stream .m4v's - this is generally fine b/c I'm usually ripping my DVD's for my iPod anyway. And I don't think this is a HipServ issue - the PS3 seems to tweak their wrapper codec when they update; not sure if this is for copyright protection or other semi-nefarious purposes.
Axentra's HipServ also has backup functionality - both via a desktop sync application (it tracks and backs the folder(s) on your machine that you specify) as well as via a USB hub where you can just copy files over. I've not tried either of these (I use TimeMachine) but they seem pretty straightfoward.
The storage capacity on the HipServ (on the LaCie Ethernet Disk mini Home Edition - the version I used) is 500GB; the price point is $199 which is incredibly reasonable. Now, as far as I can tell, it's not expandable like, for example, the HP - so you'll ultimately have to do some planning around your media files. Even if that is the case, I really like the HipServ - it's fast, lightweight, super-easy, cross-platform compatible and doesn't put a lot of crap on my machine or on Rose's to make it work.
Also, a little shout-out to the great PR folk at Axentra. They've got great press resources (photos, screenshots and product downloads) and they post links to reviews as they find them. You don't need a Social Media News Release if you do your press room right. Oh, and if you're looking for some great info on how to think about which home server is right for you, see this informative post by Ed Tittel and Toby Digby over on Tom's World. Direct comparison of the HipServer and the HP - great stuff.
Many thanks to Erica and Roby for the trial as well as their support through the craziness with the PS3 update!