Acer Aspire easyStore AH340-U2T1H Home Server
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Acer Aspire easyStore AH340-U2T1H Home Server

Average Rating:
Average rating of 4.5/5Average rating of 4.5/5Average rating of 4.5/5Average rating of 4.5/5Average rating of 4.5/5
List Price:
$499.99
Our Price:
$448.99
You Save:
$51.00 (10%)

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Product Info

  • Brand: Acer
  • EAN: 0884483809288
  • Manufacturer: Acer Computer

Features

  • Enjoy reliable 24/7 protection with a McAfee total Protection Service safeguarding against intruders and viruses.
  • Open the secure hard drive cage door to reveal 4 hot-swappable SATA hard drive bays for a no-hassle approach to increasing storage space.
  • Experience around-the-clock reliability with the Intel Atom processor providing environmentally friendly, quality performance.
  • This small form-factor server takes up little space and is perfect for any home with its trendy contemporary style, sleek black bezel and blue LEDs.
  • With Windows Home Server it enables easy backup, access, sharing and storage of digital media and PCs.

Spotlight customer reviews:

  • Customer Rating: Average rating of 3/5Average rating of 3/5Average rating of 3/5Average rating of 3/5Average rating of 3/5
  • Summary: Very useful, but with some caveats
  • Comment: I work at home and have several computers on an internal network, all of which need backing up on a regular basis. I purchased this server in hopes of it providing a solution. It now does, but only after a few bumps along the way. I can recommend this server conditionally, with the cautions described below.

    Since the computers that need to be backed up all have large hard drives themselves (600 GB to 1 TB), I purchased three additional 2 TB SATA hard drives (Western Digital 2 TB Caviar Green SATA Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive WD20EARS) and installed them. I soon started having heat problems with the server (68 to 70 degrees C). I solved them with a small $15 fan from Walmart, which simply blows constantly on the 'mesh' side of the server. But a server designed to hold four SATA drives shouldn't overheat when you put four drives in it; this is the principal factor behind the 3-star rating.

    I had some software/network configuration problems with the server and was unclear how to solve them. I then bought Microsoft Windows Home Server Unleashed (2nd Edition), which I strongly recommend; Chapter 1 alone was worth the price of the book. I restored the server itself via its accompanying CD, followed a few of the suggestions in McFedries' book, and things have worked mostly smoothly since then (as smoothly as anything involving Microsoft networking can run). I do have occasional problems; for example, there are times when I'll be able to log into the server via one of my systems using Remote Desktop Connection, yet if I try to log into the server from the same computer using the Windows Home Server Console, I get an error message. But it's unclear what's to blame for that, so I'll just leave it as a caveat.

    One last recommendation: when installing the client software on my systems, I ran into problems where it either couldn't find the server on the network, or -- having found it -- failed while trying to download the client software from the server. Turns out the problem was my firewall/antivirus software; once I turned it off, downloading the client software went just fine (and, of course, I turned the FW/AV software back on afterward).

    The initial backup of five systems took the better part of a day, but now the server does incremental backups each night, which is a tremendous load off my mind. My systems are all either Win7 or WinXP; however, my wife has a Macbook and a MacPro, both on the network as well, and she can 'see' the server. Besides the backups, I plan to use the server as a central repository for photos, music, etc., and will probably see how usable it is as a central iTunes server. I may update this review based on how those efforts go.

    All in all, a very useful device. For a bit over $800, I have a central server with automated backup of all my system and nearly 8 TB of storage. I'd be happier if it had 4 GB of RAM instead of just 2 GB, but since it runs very little software beyond Windows Home Server itself, I'm not sure it really needs much more. Your mileage may vary. ..bruce..
  • Customer Rating: Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5
  • Summary: Acer h340-U2T1H
  • Comment: Guys i am not one to post reviews, this is my very 1st time, however on this unit i had to. the unit is excellent, i have it up and running now for a month, with not one single problem. the only thing that i would would like to pass on to prospective buyers that i could not find clearly stated in any manual on the the web site is this. if you have multiple computers etc. on your network and have assigned static ip to all units you must, change your router to DHCP, AND ALSO ONE COMPUTEPER, then the unit will be found on your network, after you have done this and install the software, you will be able to go back and change your router back to static ip, and also the one computer that you changed over, you will only at this phase, be able to assign a static ip to the acers, this process caused me to make several phone calls, and none one on the other side could help. then then sent me to a department that i had to pay $69.0 for 30 minutes for help. and they could not help me. therefore do not pay this money, just change the router to DHCP. if your network is already set to DHCP then you will not have any problems setting this unit up. and you will love the benefits that this unit have to offer. by the way this is he only reason, tech support, why i will not give this unit a 5 start
  • Customer Rating: Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5
  • Summary: Excellent product!
  • Comment: Others have provided detailed reviews of the Acer Aspire easyStore, so I will merely add that I have had an extremely positive experience with it to date.

    It is very user friendly, although having some working knowledge of windows and disc management/formatting is helpful (it took me one or two tries to get the addition 2TB Hitachi HDD I added up and running), and more extensive documentation would be welcome. Other than that, however, it does exactly what it's supposed to do, and it has been 100% satisfactory in its performance. I am very happy with the easyStore, and recommend it whole-heartedly!
  • Customer Rating: Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5
  • Summary: A very intelligent backup solution and a great fast network storage solution
  • Comment: I bought this product, and 3x 2TB drives for a total of 8TB of space.

    This product is very intelligent and quiet. It takes care of all my backup needs automatically and it even takes care of backing itself up to an external 1TB USB drive that I also had available. The approach it uses for backups if very smart, since if several computers on the network all have files in common (which is usually true since most of what is on each PC is the same as the rest), it only backs up one copy of the file, not one per PC.

    The system responds very fast to media/folder browsing requests. I had a Linksys NAS 200 box before this, which was terribly slow to respond. But this box responds so fast that it seems like a local disk to me.

    I also like that this network storage solution is a real computer, which means you can actually log into it using windows remote desktop and do things (if you want to, and are computer savy). That means that if something were ever to go wrong on the box, you (or a techy friend) can actually login and install/run standard windows apps to try to correct things. Most other network storage devices are linux based and not designed for login access so if something goes wrong, you can't easily get into the box to work on it.
  • Customer Rating: Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5
  • Summary: This Little Box is Sweet
  • Comment: I bought this little box so that I could centralize all my backups from about 5 computers in my household. I was getting tired of all these little external drives flying around so I decided to get this expandable home server. For the money, it's not bad. It's not the fastest backup server but it is quiet and the backups run with very little processor hit.

    You can use Remote Desktop to get into the boxes operating system, which is a lightweight Windows 2003 Server. I wouldn't do this if you're just an average user. I've been developing and working with computer systems for 20 years so I know what I'm doing. Still, I make backups of the original files I'm about to change so I can put them back if I really mess something up.

    Configuring the box for remote access was a bit of a challenge, not from the boxes end but from the routers end. I have an older router that does support UPnP but I had to manually open up the ports and also manually configure the server for a static IP address. Changing it off of DHCP did freak the box out a bit and I had to restart it but it was ok after that.

    The server only has 2GB of memory so I wouldn't try to use it as a web server with high traffic but it's ok for your friends and family to go in, see your pictures and videos. I especially like this feature because I can keep some informational items I like to access on it and have some of my video podcasts subscriptions load to it too so I can merely access them on my netbook at lunch without having to remember to manually load it.

    My main computer, which is a 2.5TB Quad Core system, does take a long time to backup. But I still can use the computer while the backup is running and I don't notice the processor hit. I wouldn't run a lot of music tracking software like Cakewalk or Pro Tools while backups are running but for normal use, images, watching movies, internet surfing, etc. is ok while it's backing up.

    When I bought the server, I did buy an extra 2TB hard drive so I could have about 4TB's of space to start. After getting it set up, I can't wait to fill up the additional two drive bays with 2TB drives. That'll do me for a few years.

    For the money, this is a sweet box and I'm very happy with my purchase. You get some decent server power for your home and it's just a little quiet box with flashing lights that sits on your desk.