My bad experience with the HP Mediasmart server EX475 and HP's hotlinesupport
Conclusion
  • The back-up function doesn't work!
  • The redundancy backup function doesn't work!
  • If the server crashes you will loose all your data!
  • HP support don't know how to make the server work according to HP's sales sheets and website!
  • Don't trust a HP MediaSmart Server with your data!
At a Microsoft conference in 2008 in Denmark, sales representatives and a technician from HP were telling me that I should buy this Mediaserver especially for the back-up-features. "Not only did the server backup my data, it would backup the backup (redundant protection)."

I was told that I could have all my pictures stores on the server, but more important by adding another hard drive (default would be 2 x 500Mb Seagate hard drives) the server would make an "internal" back-up.

This is very important: my data would be backed-up on the same server on another hard drive in case a hard drive would crash.
This cut is taken from HP's product sheet

See full product sheet here (on my server)

Link to HP site
I therefore bought the EX475 which came with 2 x Seagate 500 Mb. hard drives, and with the possibility for another 2 hard drives. In order to secure my data I bought a 1,5 Tb Seagate hard drive and installed it into the server.

My god friend, a keen server guy, installed the server, printers, software, and all.

For 3 months it worked perfectly, and I was storing all my pictures on the server, relaying on the internal back-up system.

Then on April 14th 2009 I was working on a picture on my PC, when the system told me that the wasn't access to the server. I went out to the server and found it shut down. I restarted it, but something was wrong.

No problem I thought, I had my pictures stored redundant on the 3 hard drives on the server!

The next morning I called HP-support and spoke with Camilla. It was a long talk and we tried everything. Finally Camilla told me to take out the 3 hard drives from the server, and then she would send out a new server. All I had to do was to insert the hard drives into the new server and I would be up and running, due to the "fantastic server restore software".

The next day I received the new server, and inserted the 3 hard drives. Nothing worked!

I called HP and spoke to Camilla again. We tried everything, and more important Camilla frequently asked the specialist "Andreas". Camilla was getting frustrated because nothing we did made the server find the hard drives or just boot-up.

Camilla made me install a server tool, run the tool and e-mail her the log, so Andreas could check the server, network and PC-configuration. Everything was in perfect order, only the server wouldn't boot-up.

From here it seems to me that HP gave up. And it became more weird when Andreas, the specialist, came with 2 different suggestions:

A. The HP-server stores the data on the hard drives in a way that doesn't make it possible for you to install the hard drive into another normal PC, and then access and retrieve your data. But if I would like to try it out, in order to relax knowing my data was secure, then I could do this. But I would have to take full responsibility. Andreas (or HP) hadn't tried this out themselves.

B. I could find another person with a HP MediaSmart EX475-server and insert one of my hard drives into this persons server, and see whether or not I this way will be able to retrieve my data. Only problem is that the HP-Server automatically format a "new" hard drive when inserted into the rack, loosing any data on the hard drive. But again feel free to try - but it's your own responsibility

HP's conclusion was that the restore server function doesn't work. If the server fails, you can't get a new server and restore your data. The only way to get the server up and running was a factory-reset - loosing all data on the hard drives!

I asked HP which option A or B they would recommend, and perhaps try out. It was difficult for me to understand how their specialist Andreas could give me 2 different suggestions on solving the problem, knowing that A: will not work because data is stored in a HP-media-server way, and B: the hard drives would be reformatted automatically.

 

Until today HP haven't returned my mails (or calls) with a technical solution that solves the problems!!

But then I got a phone call from Flemming, head of complaints, offering me to close the case, by "buying the server back" for the money I paid for the product! His call was Wednesday then 20th may 2009

I was very offended by his offer trying to close the case, leaving me with loosing all my data (more than 60.000 pictures). I told Flemming that all I wanted is an answer to my question (e-mails) on how to retrieve my 60.000 pictures. After this he could buy the server back. Flemming understood my frustrations and my simple questions (after reading my e-mail), and promised to contact me the following week with an answer. He would even bypass the local specialist Andreas and ask the head office for an answer.

 
I'm writing this in parts,som more is to come. I just gets so frustrated writing these lines, that I have to stop and do something else.
 
If you would like to read the e-mail - it's in Danish - you can find it here as a pdf-file.