Designed for households and home-based businesses with multiple PCs, the Acer Aspire EasyStore home server (model AH340-UA230N) offers a simple way to network home computers, centralize, share and protect digital data as well as access it remotely from anywhere in the world. The EasyStore AH340 comes with a 1 TB hard drive, but it also includes three additional hot-swappable hard drive bays that enable expansion up to 7 TB--providing more than enough room for filing, storing and backing up a vast library of songs, videos, photos, games and documents.
 | Spec Check - Intel Atom Processor 230
- Microsoft Windows Home Server
- 1 TB Hard Drive
- 2 GB DDR2 Memory
- 3 hot swappable hard drive bays
- 5 USB 2.0 Ports
- 1 eSATA Port
- Gigabit Ethernet
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The Acer Aspire EasyStore AH340 home server offers a compact footprint and stylish blue LED status lights (see a larger view of the features). |
It includes three hot-swappable hard drive bays with simple, easy access to the drives (see a larger view; also see a view of the rear of the server). |
Offering a compact footprint of just 7.8 x 7.1 inches, the EasyStore AH340 is both stylishly and functionally designed with a piano black bezel that's complemented soft blue LED status lights. It's powered by an Intel Atom processor 230, and it features 2 GB DDR2 memory, 10/100/1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet, one eSATA port, and five USB 2.0 ports. The one-touch USB copy function enables quick file uploading--just plug in a USB device, push the button on the EasyStore AH340, and the data is automatically sorted and stored by file type into designated folders.
The Microsoft Windows Home Server operating system centralizes digital media in one location, making it easy to access files, photos, videos and music from any PC on your network. It also protects critical data by creating an image-based backup of every home computer every day, so you can restore a single file or an entire PC. With Windows Home Server, users can access the home network from the office or the road, for full access to their files and applications, just as if they were sitting in front of their home PC.
The hot swappable HDD cage enables you to increase your data storage by adding up to three 3.5-inch internal hard drives--allowing you to max out your storage capabilities at an amazing 7 TB (yes, that's terabytes). The cage is outfitted with release levers for each drive to keep them secure. In addition, a recovery/reset pinhole provides additional data protection by enabling system restores and data recoveries with just one-touch.
The server works with DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) 1.5 Certified Home Server (DMS) and digital media player (DMP) to enable music playback as well as photo and video viewing on a TV. For internet security, the EasyStore AH340 comes with a 60-day free trial of McAfee Internet Security Suite 2008.
24/7 Global Access to Your Data
The Aspire easyStore offers a variety of networking benefits inside the home as well as remotely. For example, parents can access their children's homework while traveling for business. They can also upload videos and photos from sports events or summer vacations to the server, even while away from home. At any time, from anywhere, every family member with a PC in the home network can access photos, videos, music and other documents from the home server.
This centralization of digital data saves significant time by eliminating the need to transfer data from one PC to another, every time someone wants a photo, video or other document that's stored on another PC. It's also a safeguard. If a netbook or notebook is damaged, lost or stolen, users don't lose their data along with it, since it's backed up at home. In addition, when a new system is added to the network, it's quick and easy to upload data from the computer to the server.
Customer Review: Great Home Server
After watching Home Server evolve (or not evolve) over the last 3 years I jumped on this unit. Great price and physical size VS the HP models is what made me jump. Right away I added two other 500gig drives and made sure I made all my content was redundantly stored. I hate data loss. Every should be aware that this comes shipped with a single drive, which can fail. So please buy a 2nd 1tb drive right away so you don't lose your data. I had two extra drives in my current system. So I copied over all the data to Acer Aspire, moved over the drives and formatted them, then made my data redundant. The unit has smart shutdown software, turns off when your computers go into standby then wakes up itself and your computers to do backups. The only think I did not like was the virus software. And what made that worse was that there was not a easy uninstall button. You have to remote desktop in and uninstall from add/remove programs. Also the unit comes with none of the MS patches, which required 4 or 5 reboots and took a few hours.
Customer Review: Great server, and a great value too.
There aren't many purpose-built Windows Home Server systems available. I've tried the HP 485 also, and I prefer the Acer. I haven't measured the power consumption directly, but the Atom processor should use less power. More importantly though, it is much quieter than the HP. The case design seems very sensible. It is shorter than the HP, but a couple of inches wider. This is partly because there's a big 120mm fan on the right side, blowing air directly at the 4 drive bays as well as the motherboard at the bottom. Mine came with a Western Digital Green drive. It was the WD10EAVS version which I believe is a budget model (only 8MB cache), but I'm inclined to trust it more than the Seagate 7200.11 drive which comes with the HP. I did have one problem but this was more of a documentation error. It happened when I tried to do a server recovery (I didn't need to, I just wanted to make sure I knew how.) This consists of starting the Server Recovery CD on a connected computer, then rebooting the server and hitting the reset switch. Or so the instructions said - but I kept getting the "Server Not Found" error. It took a long time to wade through Acer's technical support phone system - the first two people on the line seemed to think I was dealing with a desktop computer - but after 20 minutes they finally transferred me to someone with access to the necessary information. It turns out that to put it in reset mode, you have to turn off the server, press and *hold* the reset button (with a paperclip), hit the power button, *then* after several seconds, release the reset button. Even after that, I had to keep hitting the "back" button on the recovery software and retrying, but after a couple of minutes it found the server, and the recovery went smoothly from there.
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This 32" AQUOS LC32D62U sets a new standard for large-screen flat panel TVs. With Full HD Spec 1080p resolution, dramatically enhanced black level and an elegant new design, it produces a breathtaking picture quality that is second to none. The LC32D62U utilizes the next generation of Sharp's proprietary Advanced Super View/Black TFT Panel with multi-pixel technology, providing 10,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio with Enhanced Picture Contrast Technology, 6ms response time and wide viewing angles (176°H x 176°V). The LC32D62U has HDTV with built-in ATSC / QAM / NTSC tuners and include 2 HDMI¿ inputs, compatible with 1080p signals, and 2 HD component video inputs. The LC32D62U features a sleek piano black cabinet, with subtle, recessed bottom-mounted speakers and the included table stand easily removes for wall mounting applications.
