ACER Aspire easyStore H340

[aghatus]

After more than 50 hours of looking for a storage solution for my little collection of divx-xvid-mpg-movies (about 2500), DVD-rips (about 500), HD-mkvs (300), TV-shows (about 30 complete shows including all seasons for example Stargate SG-1, Two and half men, Eureka, Sopranos and many more), music (about 85.000 mp3 files) and pictures (about 300 GB), I finally chose one.

I decided to buy and ordered the following bundle:

ACER Aspire easyStore H340 with the following specification

http://usingwindowshomeserver.com/2009/05/24/in-depth-review-of-the-acer-aspire-easystore-h340-windows-home-server/

OS
Windows Home Server

PROCESSOR
Intel Atom 230 processor 1.6 GHZ

MEMORY
2GB of DDR2 DRAM

NETWORK SUPPORT
Built in 10/100/1000 RJ45 Ethernet

INTERFACES
4 USB 2.0 ports on the back
1 USB 2.0 port on the front
1 eSATA port (on the back)

INTERNAL HARD DRIVES
4 x SATA Western Digital Cavier Green 1TB

SIZE
20 cm (W) x 18 cm (H) x 12.2 cm (D)


PRICE 550,- €



Additionally to the Acer H340 i ordered the following components:

FANTEC QB-35US2 black 4Bay box
for 4x3.5" SATA HDD
USB2.0 eSATA

http://www.fantec.de/html/en/0/article.html

+

4 SATA Western Digital Cavier Green 1TB

PRICE: 420,- €



TOTAL COST: 970,- €

For an expandable storage solution.


I am gonna use it as streaming server for my 3 Transgear DVX 700 units, my PS3 and Xbox 360 and for the new Popcorn Hour C-200 as soon as I get one, with windows media player, twonky and wizd.
Further I'm gonna try to make streaming the video and music files stored on it over the internet possible.

It seems to be a really good device with the possibility to expand the storage capacity by adding more and more additional Fantec 4 bay cases.

It should arrive tomorrow!

What do you think about it?

Has any one already experience with the Acer or WHS based storage solutions?

If you have any question about this project I'll try to help you.

[FredFlintstone]

Hi aghatus,

I bought one about 2 weeks ago and I'm totally happy with it - it's quiet and very fast - I using for streaming dvd and blurays, backup of my windows pc's and even may macbook pro with time machine - remote access and web hosting. Because it is based on Windows 2003 Server you can do a lot more with it then with the linux based servers (at least without a lot of hacking ..). I'm pretty sure you will love it.

Any question just ask...

Regards

Fred

P.S. Reason for buying it was price and functionality ....

[taje]

I was looking into buying one of these. Is it possible to download torrents or nzb's on this without a computer on? Also can you enable NFS on it? Last, is the power draw from this going to be way more than say the Synology or QNAP?

If it can do that I am sold. Thanks.

[aghatus]

Today my Acer arrived!
And I'm more than happy with it!

It is very quiet and offers all the functions i need!
The configuration was very easy and the speed is realy good 45-55 mb/s in average.


I allready installed Applejuice, BitTorrent, AVAST as Antivirus.

I wanted to install twonky and wizd, but it is not necessary.
I was able to access all my files with all my devices right just in the same moment when they are stored on the Acer.



@taje

The Acer H340 is a computer with Windows Home Server as operating system. You can install everithing you want on it, it just has to be compatible with Windows 2003.
The power consumption is very low.
I have about 1,5w in standby, 15w idle, and max 54 w on full load!
To install software you just have to use remote desktop connecton.
It is just unbeliveable how good it fits on my needs!

[taje]

aghatus - I think I might buy this one. Have you tried streaming HD movies (1080p or Blu-Ray) from it yet, specifically mkv files? I would think you could have NFS since it is Windows 2003 on it. I am worried that this won't be enough to stream something like that over the network.

[aghatus]

I have no problem streaming any files.
I tryed to stream mkv files over 100Mbit and 1000Mbit. As streamingclient I used my notebooks and Computers, no was no problem. Also there was no problem streaming converted MKV's to my PS3. The PS3 does not support MKV so I converted some files to mpeg. The datarate and quality was the same, just the container changed from MKV to mpeg. I had no lags or something else.

[taje]

Awesome. I too have converted mkv to mpg for my PS3. Good to hear that this will work. Going to for sure get one now. Thanks :p

[aghatus]

U're Welcome!

Now I'm copying all my media to the server, this will take lots of time!

*g* I'm so happy *g*

[FredFlintstone]

Hi

I installed Windows Service for Unix on it, this contains a NFS Server and Client.
Works like a charme - I stream mainly all my Bluray Rips with it - works perfectly.

Regards
Fred

[toshu]

aghatus

forgive me if this is na dumb question but, how are the 4 drives set up in the Acer. JBOD or RAID??

If RAID is an option, which RAIDs are available?

Right now in the US the unit comes with 1TB drive. Do additional drives also need to eb the same size and manufacturer?

Will it handle 1.5 and 2 TB drives??

How does it handle adding axtra dives , say 6 months from now?? are they added JBOD??

Thanks

[aghatus]

Hi,
sorry for the late answer!

The H340 is handling the HDD's as JBOD.
You are not able to enter tbe BIOS because the H340 doesn't have a graphic card, so you can't configure any basics.

But you can activate the duplication for any stored folder. The duplicate will be stored on a different drive added to the JBOD.

Any additional added drive (USB/eSATA/internal) will firstly be shown in the configuration pannel as a separate drive, and you will have the option to add it to the JBOD.