TiVo <--> Windows Home Server options

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The kids have been complaining about how many shows I have marked "Keep Until I Delete" on our two 750GB TiVoHD's, as it is limiting their flexibility. To offload as much content as possible, I've just kept adding 1TB HDDs (started out as 500GB HDDs) to my PC until I couldn't really add any more.

Meanwhile, the kids have complained that all our music is scattered about on 4 different PC's and my wife's been on me about not getting all our photos where she can easily find them. So this is coming to a head.

For some reason, I was unaware of inexpensive alternatives other than buying enclosures and putting large drives in them and having a PC with numerous drive bays. I had just assumed a server would be out of the question because many years ago when I was quite involved with setting them up their cost was out of reach for a typical home user.

A couple days ago I came across a deal on dealnews.com for a NAS. As I came to understand what a NAS did and how inexpensive they could be, I felt it was the solution to my issues. But first, I wanted to make sure there wouldn't be any problem viewing NAS-based videos in real-time on the TiVoHDs. I came back here to see what I could learn and came across the thread on the HP MediaSmart Expander for TiVo. This was my first exposure to Windows Home Server, and it didn't take much to convince me that a WHS would likely be a better solution for me than a NAS.

Last night, as I started to look for other WHS's to compare to the HP MediaSmart, I came across a very big discount on dealnews for the Lenovo IdeaCenter D400-3013AU Home Storage Server. Lenovo had the price marked down to $469 from the original list of $499, but a coupon code lowered the price to only $319 with free shipping.

With the price being so much lower than the other WHS's I found, I went ahead and ordered one at the greatly discounted price. My concerns are that the D400 uses a slower 1.6GHz Atom 230 processor and comes with only 1GB of RAM (expandable to 2GB), but reviews say that transfer rates are surprisingly good, noting that read access is very fast on these units. Another concern is that the D400 is only expandable to 8TB, while the EX490/EX495 is expandable to 15TB/17TB. With my history of "filling up the garage", I'm concerned that the 8TB limitation may be an issue. Also, one of my boys wants to be able to convert numerous videos for his iPod Touch, and HP's flavor of WHS has converting built in.

Could Lenovo's big discount on these indicate that they are being "dumped" to make room for a more robust unit that would better compete with HP?

Hoping to avoid buyer's remorse, I nearly called Lenovo to ask to cancel the order, but I don't want to be too hasty with a deal that may be awfully hard to beat.

What do you guys that have WHS's think? I really don't mind spending a couple hundred more to get the features of the MediaSmart EX490/EX495 if it's going to make a noticeable difference. How noticeable do you think it would be?

What do you see as the tradeoffs?

What kinds of tasks does processor speed impact most?

Is the money better spent on additional drive(s)?

Thanks!

 

I notice the Lenovo D400 has a integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950, while the HP MediaSmart does not. I'm wondering if this could have anything to do with Lenovo's choice of the lighter CPU.

Can an integrated graphics chip actually take any load off the CPU during typical WHS operations? Could it come into play during video streaming? Anybody know?

 

This is what I figured as well, but in one of the many reviews I came across regarding the nearly identical Acer Easystore H340, a guy mentioned something about the GPU helping out in some manner with video. I have no idea if that is even possible or not, so I was curious to know what others might think.

 

Thanks for the input. I think I'm going to go through with this deal and spend the money saved on a couple 2TB drives.

I have no idea why they show a 8TB limit - I'm guessing somebody at Lenovo didn't put a whole lot of thought into it and based that number on each of the 4 bays being filled with a 2TB (largest current size SATA) drive. There's no obvious reason why they wouldn't figure on additional drive space connected by eSATA unless some of their own programming couldn't handle everything Windows Home Server could throw at it. I downloaded and browsed through the User's Guide and it didn't even address the eSATA, so I wouldn't know some the real limitations until trying to exceed them.