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Sometimes connecting Macs and PCs on the same media network can be a pain.  There are plenty of media servers that work well with one but not the other, or require third-party software to work well with one (usually on the Mac side).  HP is making connecting the two platforms a bit easier with the newest version of its MediaSmart media server that’s fully compatible with both.

The MediaSmart Server ex485 and ex487 models will both have features that set the MediaSmart above other such servers.  As any media server, it can hold and stream music and photos with any computer, using HP photo viewer for photos, and streaming music directly to iTunes for any computers connected to the same network. 

It can also serve as a place to back up data with Windows Home Server backup on the PC side.  On the Mac side is where the MediaSmart does it right: it supports Leopard’s Time Machine so you don’t need to have a potentially loud external hard drive hogging a USB port at all times as I do.

The MediaSmart will also backup whatever folders you designate to Amazon’s S3 backup service, as well as duplicating them to a separate hard drive.  That way the files are in at least three different places which is quite useful.

The Mac-compatible MediaSmart will pack a 64-bit Intel Celeron 2.0 GHz processor and 2GB of RAM, not mind-blowing, but more than adequate for a media server.  The ex485 comes with 750GB of hard drive space for $599, while the ex487 has 1.5 TB for $749, which both seem like good deals.  They’ll be up for pre-order on January 5, 2009, and ship by February.  They can both be expanded to 9 TB with added drives, which seems like just a little bit of overkill.

Read [MediaSmart page]