Acer Aspire AH340-UA230N Home Server Review

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(More customer reviews)QUICK SUMMARY:Acer's server, when configured correctly, provides home users and small offices a powerful solution for automated backups, restores, remote access and media server capability.However, configuring this server can be challenging, and Acer makes little effort to help its customers.Microsoft's Windows Home Server is a terrific -- and stable! -- operating system.Add a 2nd hard drive, too, and you've got redundant data storage.Cautiously recommended.

*** SPECIAL NOTE as of February 6, 2010:McAfee Antivirus automatically updated their software to Version 5, which totally screwed up my server!STAY AWAY from McAfee!!If you buy this server, immediately use Remote Desktop to open the server's Control Panel, choose Add or Remove Programs, and uninstall McAfee from your server!McAfee cannot be trusted!Read the end of this review to learn more.

What follows is my review of the Acer Aspire AH340-UA230N Home Server, based upon my personal experience with it since purchasing one in late June 2009. For 2010, Acer has refreshed their Windows Home Server lineup using faster RAM and the Intel Atom D410 and D510 CPUs which have a slight bump in processor speed and, for the D510, more L2 cache.Other than this, the AH341 and AH342 servers are *exactly* the same as the older AH340 server.

****** ACER HOME SERVER PRODUCT CONFIGURATION CHART ******

Acer Aspire easyStore AH340-U2T1H Windows? Home Server, Intel? Atom(tm) Processor 230 (512KB L2 cache, 1.60GHz, 533MHz FSB), 2GB (2/0) DDR2 667 SDRAM, 256MB flash ROM, 2TB SATA hard drive, Intel? Graphics Media Accelerator 950, gigabit LAN

Acer Aspire AH340-UA230N Windows? Home Server, Intel? Atom(tm) Processor 230 (512KB L2 cache, 1.60GHz, 533MHz FSB), 2GB (2/0) DDR2 667 SDRAM, 256MB flash ROM, 1TB SATA hard drive, Intel? Graphics Media Accelerator 950, gigabit LAN

Acer Aspire easyStore AH341-U1T2H Windows? Home Server, Intel? Atom(tm) Processor D410 (512KB L2 cache, 1.66GHz), 2GB (2) DDR2 800 SDRAM, 256MB flash ROM, 1TB SATA hard drive, gigabit LAN

Acer Aspire easyStore AH342-U2T2H Home Server (Black), Intel? Atom(tm) Processor D510 (1MB L2 cache, 1.66GHz), 2GB (2) DDR2 800 SDRAM, 256MB flash ROM, 2TB SATA hard drive, gigabit LAN

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What follows is my review of this Acer home server, based upon my personal experience with it since purchasing one in late June 2009.If you read this very long review, you'll learn quite a bit about this Acer server and the Windows Home Server operating system.You'll also read about some minor issues I've run into, and how to workaround those issues.I've owned this server for six months now, and it's been a good experience overall.If you buy this Acer server, you're not going to get much help from Acer. So for any problems, your own technical know-how and the Internet community are your best sources of help.

In short, I bought this Acer server and successfully installed it on my home network.In very large part, it's doing what it's supposed to be doing, that is, it automatically backs up my four-computer home network, and it gives me remote access to my data, too.Thus far, I have only one small, re-occurring issue which I'll share in a moment.

The out-of-box experience is pretty good, but don't expect much by way of documentation.You'll need to look elsewhere to understand all the ins-and-outs of using Windows Home Server (WHS).Although the "Quick Start" booklet seems very thick, it's actually got the instructions in about five or six languages, and so when you read the English section (if you read English), you'll only see how to set-up the server with a little narrative and black-and-white screenshots that are difficult to read.Fortunately, the setup is pretty easy, and they do include a larger poster with just the absolute essentials (which is what I used), and the poster was good enough.In short, plug-in the ethernet cable from the server to your wireless router, and you're in business.The server is heavier than I expected, and *quieter* than I expected (much less noisy than my desktop computer).

Then, you install a CD in one of your available networked computers to install the Server Console on the installed-from computer, and to begin configuring your new server.One things stands out in my mind here...the instructions say turn-on your server and wait until the blue LED light is glowing steady.Trouble is, there are about seven or eight lights glowing at this point (one light for each of the four disk drive bays, a power-on light, a network light, an "information" light, and possibly a disk activity light), and some of the lights glow purple, not blue.Suffice it to say that you should wait a few minutes just to make sure everything is settled before you start server configuring.

The server configuration went pretty well, I thought.Do a Google search for "Acer Windows Home Server Review" and you'll find a website where someone has very helpfully documented the entire install process using color screenshots of each step.The installed server console program (running on one of your networked computers) is not resizeable and won't maximize, which is annoying.You can use Remote Desktop Connection to actually login to your new server (if you're not familiar with Remote Desktop Connection, it lets you connect to another computer from the computer you're using).

In a very short time, my old, quirky Gateway desktop computer (circa 2003, XP Pro, 2Ghz CPU, 512MB RAM, 80GB HD) was recognized by the new Acer server, and I was creating user accounts on the server that match my desktop computer (you should use a password on your user accounts, and be sure to specify the same password on the server as what you use for the desktop/laptop account).

At this point, I had my first problem -- the Gateway's connection to the server would get lost inexplicably during the first attempt at a manual backup.Long story short, I completely reinstalled Windows XP Pro SP-3 on the Gateway desktop, reinstalled the Windows Home Server Console, and was able to begin getting successful backups until I got to the point where I restored all my digital media files (using Acronis and an external hard drive -- not using the new Acer server) and then tried a WHS backup, which fails inexplicably.Could be my aging and quirky Gateway hardware, but it's a fresh install of XP and the error messaging is vague and unhelpful.

Notably, my three laptops (running XP Media Edition w/1GB RAM, Vista Ultimate w/2GB, and Windows 7 Ultimate w/4GB of RAM) backed up their contents perfectly -- no troubles at all, even backing up a very large VMWare virtual hard drive (which is a single, physical, 20GB file on my Vista laptop).

Very cool feature:This Acer will wake-up either a sleeping or hibernating computer to do the backup in the middle of the night!So, don't turn-off your computers, just put them in sleep/hibernate mode so they don't use much power, but will still get backed-up.(Note:WHS does *not* use Wake On LAN technology, which doesn't work reliably in all environments - the WHS technical strategy for waking sleeping/hibernating computers works much better than WOL).The WHS backups are incremental, so you can return to any previous point in time during a restore -- you aren't limited just to what was done last night.This is handy if you want to restore your computer to the way it worked one month ago, when it was working reliably (you'd probably do a 2nd restore, then, to load all your most recent data following the system restore).

To get remote access to work correctly, you need to modify your ISP's modem setups (your ISP's modem most likely has a built-in router, too).Choose "Bridged over Ethernet" protocol in the modem setups, and then configure your wireless router that's attached to the modem so it is a PPPoE connection (you'll need your ISP's account name and password for the router configuration).Once I got through this headache, I was able to gain remote access to my server -- very cool feature!!(BTW, don't count on any technical help by AT&T/Bellsouth - you won't get any that's helpful to you).You may also have trouble if your ISP blocks certain ports, like ports 80 and 443.One Amazon customer reported that Verizon blocks those two ports which are necessary to get remote access to your server.(ISPs generally don't like the idea of you running a server from a residential high-speed connection).

I did a successful restore of my quirky Gateway computer, just to see what that's like.Very simple.Install a Restore CD in the computer (which must be connected by ethernet, not wirelessly), and choose a backup on the server you'll use for the restore.I did this twice, and it worked perfectly and easily.A computer with XP SP-3, Office Pro and maybe 5GB of personal data was restored in about 20 minutes!

In short, it's a 4-star product because I can't backup my digital media files on my Gateway.My Gateway desktop hardware *is* quirky, so that very well might be the problem root cause, but even still, the WHS backup is unhelpful in diagnosing the exact issue for me.(The Windows Event Viewer alludes to a buffer space issue with a socket, but that's beyond the home consumer's ability to understand).

****...Read more›

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Product Description:
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

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.

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NEW AC Adapter/Power Supply for Acer Aspire 3000 3500 3600 3610 5000 5100 Review

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(More customer reviews)A lot of reviews are stating that the cord length is too short, but I don't feel like it is. My only complaint is that it gets a little warm occasionally, so I just unplug it when not in need. It's been great to me so far and it's better than the other option of having to spend over $100 at Best Buy for something similar.

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Product Description:
Our ac adapters are made with the highest quality materials. Laptop safeguard features against incorrect voltage, short circuit, internal overheating. 100% compatibility with the original.

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Acer AS7741G-7017 17.3-Inch Laptop ( Black) Review

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(More customer reviews)I've owned several mid-low end laptops over the years and this one is the best yet. Fast fast fast, I don't notice much difference between my i7 desktop and this. Ofcourse the graphics card isn't as fast as my desktop's (desktop has an HD 5850) but I can't see how you could run anything better without burning up the battery in 10 minutes. I can play Street fighter 4 with mostly everything maxed out except AA, if I add any AA the game slows down to under 40 FPS so it's unplayable. for $800 you can't beat it, and i've always had great luck with acer, i've owned the aspire ONE and a different acer with a 17" screen (which i dropped and broke) The texture on the laptop is a plus too, the smooth shiny stuff on my acer ONE netbook got scratched to hell and looked bad even though it worked perfectly. I definitely recommend this laptop as an entry level gaming laptop. I would NOT buy anything with a less powerful graphics card, this one is just right for a laptop IMO.I noticed very little "bloatware" on this laptop which is always a plus, remember to make the backup DVD ASAP!

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Product Description:

Acer Aspire 7741: Big Screen Sensation

Enjoy a portable theater experience with the Acer Aspire 7741 (AS7741G-7017) PC laptop, which features a 17.3-inch CineCrystal display with a fast response time so that fast action moves seamlessly across the screen and a 16:9 aspect ratio--perfect for viewing content created for the widescreen. And with the smart performance of the turbo-charged Intel Core i5 processor and a plethora of cool convenience features, you have everything you need within reach to power through daily tasks and enjoy your media wherever you are.

Smart performance and a seamless visual experience
start with the Intel Core i5 processor.

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eMachines Desktop PC with AMD Athlon(TM) XP Processor 3000+ (T3025) Review

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(More customer reviews)I purchased this wonderful PC about 3 weeks ago, and let me tell you, it was money well spent. When my old Gateway died, I found that there was nothing I could do to replace the power supply which had failed. Gateway made it a proprietary part, and I would have had to have paid them 200 dollars to replace it. Needless to say, that is an exorbitant amount of money to pay to repair a 4 year old computer.
With that in mind, I went looking for a computer with high quality parts that were replaceable with parts off the shelf. I quickly found out that other pc makers like HP also use proprietary parts, and that their wiring/mobo layouts are atrocious.
I finally saw the EMachines T3025, and its specs were quire impressive. I determined by calling their technical support that all of their parts are end user replaceable, and that they use high quality parts. Some of these are not listed on any of the detailed specs, but some examples where others would cut corners are: The Hard Drive is a Western Digital ATA 133, 7200 RPM, not some cheap knockoff.
The Power Supply is 300 watts, which supplies more than ample power (compare to HPs usual 150 Watts). The Nforce 2 Motherboard, one of the best chipsets, and it takes ddr 333 memory.
Enough of this technical hodgepodge, how does it run? The answer is that it runs amazingly well. Its functionality is great, and its speed is unmatched in its price range. The Athlon 3000+ and the 512 mb of ddr ram make this thing fly. Its sound is excellent, and it is handled by the motherboard. The integrated Ethernet works well, as does the media card reader and USB ports.
Gaming on this PC is good, but I highly recommend an upgrade in that department for serious gaming. I installed a radeon 9600, which helped immensely, and still ended up at 800 dollars. For that price you get a PC that is immensely reliable, upgradeable, and FAST. It is comparable, benchmark wise to a Dimension XPS costing 3 times that much, but Dell also uses proprietary parts.
Emachine's Tech Support is great as well. I called 14 times, and averaged less than 50 seconds on hold each time before a (GASP) Real Human Being picked up.
This computer has earned my highest recommendation for its budget friendly price, quality of parts, upgradeability (standard micro-atx mobo, Atx power supply, 2 GB ram maximum,), blazing performance, and of course, friendly technical support. A 3 year on site warranty is available via Emachines for the low price of 140 dollars as well - less than 1/2 of what Dell and Gateway charge. Buy this computer, and you will not be disappointed.

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Acer AspireRevo AR3700-U3002 Slim and Compact Desktop - Blue Review

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(More customer reviews)This is just a quick note to fill in a couple of details not in the listed specs, now that I've actually received and set up 2 of these.

The version of ION graphics is listed on the box as "GT218-ION" They work perfectly, so far as I can tell for You Tube HD (and Hulu) videos. (I did first upgrade Flash to version 10.1.)

The "wireless" mouse and keyboard work via a nano-size dongle installed in a USB port, and are fine up to a distance of about 5 feet. They are seen by Windows as 2.4GHz, but are not listed as Bluetooth.

Both the VGA video to a 20" 1600 x 1200 pixel LCD PC monitor and the HDMI video to a 46" 1080p (1920 x 1024 pixel) LED TV work fine. (I did reduce the resolution slightly on the TV due to the TV's overscanning otherwise hiding the edge of the PC display screen. I'm sure the overscan can also be adjusted in the TV settings to resolve this without reducing resolution, but didn't find the place to do so quickly enough.)

Speed is listed as 3.5 on the Windows Experience, compared to 2.1 on our Asus Eee PC 1000 running the 32 bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium. (These new PCs run the 64 bit version.)

These are marvelously quiet. The only time the fan is ever audible is for a moment during the initial power-on sequence.

I had no trouble installing our Samsung USB DVD player. Just plugged it in and it was immediately recognized. Likewise, pointing to my HP 2605 networked color laser printer - found and configured automatically. (One suggestion: when the printer installer offers to update its list of printer drivers, let it.)

It wasn't initially clear how I would reinstall everything if the hard drive ever fails. The PC didn't come with any media to be used for that. (I later discovered the included program eRecovery creates an image of the factory setup on 3 DVDs, with a fourth DVD for drivers, and easily made a set on DVD+RW disks, using the above-mentioned external DVD driveSamsung USB 2.0 8x DVD Writer External Optical Drive for Mac and PC SE-S084C/RSBN (Gloss Black).)

Another day in and I've removed some of the unneeded pre-installed programs, disabled unwanted startup programs with msconfig, installed Microsoft Security Essentials, Firefox (along with add-ins Firefox Sync, NoScript, Flashblock, and BetterPrivacy), and Microsoft Office 2007 (2010 comes pre-installed, but would have cost me extra.) Windows Update has found and installed dozens of security upgrades.

Day 3: Telecommuted using this PC today. The VPN link was fine, as was management of a remote database application and a GoToMeeting that included both audio and video. Nothing I did today spiked CPU utilization about 40%! I also checked electricity used, and found it usually under 25 watts, barely more than the 20 watts used by our Asus Eee PC 1000 netbook, despite this Acer having more cores (2 rather than 1), faster clock speed (1.8GHz in place of 1.6GHz), and a 216GB hard drive (rather than 40GB of SSD.) Both 802.11b WiFi and Gigabit Ethernet Internet links work fine.

I'll keep adding more as I finish configuring these, but wanted to post now in case anyone else has been wondering whether these actually exist and are any good. The answer is yes!

Update: Two weeks in, this has still been a perfect choice for both of us. Everything is now configured just the way we like, and a full system backup made, just in case. (I used our USB external DVD+RW drive, but any external USB drive with enough space would do.)

For anyone wondering whether the standard 2GB of RAM is enough, neither of ours has yet used even half of that yet, even though one of our PCs typically has a dozen windows open in different applications simultaneously.

Highly recommended!

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Product Description:

Acer AspireRevo AR3700: Mini Home Entertainment Center

Ultra-sleek and about the size of a book, the space-saving and quiet Acer AspireRevo AR3700-U3002 nettop is an easy fit for any room in the house--perfect for use as a fully functional home office PC or as a multimedia hub for casual gaming when connected to an LCD or HDTV. Its compact 1L size makes it easy to stand discreetly on a desk, and you can even attach it to the back of an HDTV or monitor with the included VESA mounting kit.

The space-saving AspireRevo is ideal for streaming movies, TV shows, music and other online media as well as tackling everyday computing needs with ease.

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Acer AspireRevo AR1600-U910H Black/White Desktop PC (Windows XP Home) Review

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(More customer reviews)I know some people will use this aa a small form pc for everyday use, but I'm only reviewing this from a HTPC perspective.Right now its connected to my network wirelessly and Im streaming my movies to my flatscreen tv.Its great for viewing Hi def content, I thought theres no way a processor this slow could ossibly playback through HDMI clearly.I was pleasantly surprised, after a bit of setup it streams ANY format thrown at it through HDMI.I loaded windows vista on this because of windows media center wich really helps with managing all my movies, music and pictures.The only issue is viewing flash video online, dont get me wrong it plays the video reasonably well but you will notice the stuttering at times on the video.Flash currently is not configured to run on these new processors so viewing flash online will be an issue until flash 10.1 wich will be released some time early next year.The processor isnt strong enough to handle high end computing tasks like video editing or photoshop, but this isnt what this pc is made for.Coupple of notes about setup, it comes with windows xp home but that OS may not provide as much sophistication as most people would like, I installed vista on this pc pretty easily.You must have either an external dvd drive or a usb drive with at least 4 giggs of available space.If your using a usb drive you must load the OS dvd on a diferent pc and then copy the files over to the usb drive, afterwards connect to this pc and start setup while in windows xp.Also please remember to load all the drivers needed if you install a new OS.[...]

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Product Description:
Ultra-Slim PC Perfect for Everyday Computing: The Portable AspireRevo is the perfect mini PC providing everywhere connectivity to surf the web, view/edit photos, watch HD movies, listen to music and more.Compact Design: Its compact 1L size makes it easy to stand discreetly on a desk or mount (mount sold separately) to the back of a monitor to save space. Grab it to go for remote entertainment with friends or for travel.Optimum Performance: Designed for low energy consumption, the Intel Atom Processor combines performance and efficiency to let you explore the Internet and enjoy entertainment and games.The AspireRevo keeps you in touch all day via Gigabit Ethernet LAN connectivity.Six USB ports and a Media Card Reader make transferring your photos and other files as fast and easy as ever.

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