Simplify your laptop buying
- Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 8 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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8 out of 8 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"Very nice NAS"
Pros: Quiet, Easy to Install, Easy to Access
Cons: Not sure yet - nothing has come up.
Summary: I am not a network admin type, but I do have 4 PCs at my house that I am forced to network and troubleshoot. I have been looking for NAS for some time, but could not figure out the differece between the cheap and high dollar units. Reveiws of other units refered to fan noise and need for client software as cons. I wanted something simple to store shared media and files.
On an impusle, I purchased the MV2020. It seemed to be in the mid range of prices of the units I was looking at, and it got a 7.8 by the editors.
It came, I hooked it to the network (linksys cable router), installed the software that came with it, and IT WORKED! I moved all my music and pictures over to it. It came with software to perform auto backups on a time interval that I set. I could have chosen to write to the NAS any time my local HD was written to, but I chose to update every 30 mins.
I had to map some subdirectories as network drives in order to get a QUICKEN file to be read from the HP unit. I chose to have the active Quiken data file to be stored on the HP so it can be accessed from any computer (not sure what would happen if two PC tried to access - probably would lock out the 2nd user, I hope).
I did have some problems with long file names copying over. Some of my files were buried in subdirectories 5 layers deep causing the file name to be too long, but no big deal fixing that. That is really a WINDOWS issue anyway.
This unit is quiet. It does have an internal fan that is no louder than a quiet PC fan - very acceptable. There is no need for installing any software on the clients. The HP shows up in Network Neighborhood and you access it like any other shared drive on the network.
HP does suggest that you do not rename the 4 subdirectories already set up on the drive - FileShare, MediaShare, Backup, and CinemaNow. Again, no big deal there.
Fit and finish as well as looks are very good. So far, I am very happy with this unit. I have not needed support, so the rating there is only for the docs. I really did not need any - just plug it into the network, the software found it and it was ready to go.
Network types might find some lack of functionality, but for the network user who does not want a complicated system, the $1/gig price is well worth not having to spend 4 hourse getting the thing to work!
HP Media Vault mv2020 (500GB):
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