Category: (CE)
2 new, starting at $189.99
3 used, starting at $250.00
HP MV2120 Media Vault. Expandable network storage for the customer requiring robust data protection and remote access to their most important files and media. The easy to install and use HP Media Vault can be set for continuous file backup. In addition, it provides remote access to content and robust media and document sharing. The HP Media Vault is best suited for the home, home office or small business that requires a central location for files that devices on the network can share. Multiple computers in your home and home office or small business often means files, documents, photos, music and videos are scattered everywhere and difficult to locate. The HP Media Vault provides a central copy of all your media and files for easy access from any computer in your home, home office or small business network. And, with remote access, your HP Media Vault provides anytime, anywhere access to your most important files from any internet connected computer. Sharing files and photos via the web used to be a time intensive and sometimes scary endeavor. Your HP Media Vault allows you to grant file access to specified people outside your home, home office or small business. Using HP Photo Webshare, you can even create a photo website on your HP Media Vault.
With the HP Media Vault, you'll be able to quickly create a centralized storage and sharing solution for your home or small business that can handle your most important documents, photos, videos, and music--including the ability to integrate your home's iTunes digital audio libraries. The Linux-powered HP Media Vault MV2120 comes with an integrated 500 GB hard drive (7200 RPM) as well as one expansion bay, enabling you to effortlessly add another Serial ATA (SATA) hard drive with a terabyte (1 TB, or 1024 GB) of additional storage or for RAID 1 mirroring.
But the HP Media Vault isn't bound by the limitations of your wired or wireless network. With its powerful remote access features, you can create a URL that authorized users can access via a Web browser to download files. And with Photo Webshare, you can create your own online photo albums from images stored on the Media Vault.
![]() Add another 1 TB of storage to the HP Media Vault thanks to one SATA expansion bay. |
![]() The Media Vault provides access to all your networked PCs as well as to remote users via the Internet. |
Media Vault Design
The redesigned Media Vault now shares the same black chassis
design and glowing blue hard drive indicators as its bigger HP
MediaSmart Server sibling. Measuring 5.5 x 9.6 x 5.4 inches
(WxDxH) and weighing 7.1 pounds, the MV2120 is smaller than its
predecessor (the MV2000 series Media Vault), and it switches to a
horizontal orientation for storing its hard drives.
Opening the front grille reveals a slide-out expansion bay on top, which can be fitted with an optional SATA hard drive. The front of the Media Vault also includes blue backlit icon indicators for power, network connectivity, and health of the integrated and optionally installed hard drives, as well as a USB 2.0 port. The back of the device includes an Ethernet jack (10/100/1000 Gigabit), an additional USB 2.0 port, and the power button. You can connect additional USB hard drives to the Media Vault for additional storage and backup options. Note, however, that printers won't work with the Media Vault as it does not include a print server. The MV2120 is powered by the Linux 2.6 kernel operating system and includes 128 MB of internal RAM memory.
A Central Hub for All Your Files
Great for the home, home office or small business that requires a
central location for files that devices on the network can share,
setting up and using your HP Media Vault is simple. A few quick
steps get you up and running 24/7, and it's ready to work for you
no matter how many desktop or notebook PCs are on your home
network.
For music lovers, you can centralize your iTunes music library and playlists on the Media Vault for playback on any computer running iTunes on your network. And you can stream media files from the Media Vault to your networked TV and other digital devices for high-quality playback. You can access your media files from Windows-, Mac-, and Linux-based computers.
The HP Media Vault also enables direct remote access to your files when you're away from home, or to others connecting from far-flung locales. You can create an online connection to your Media Vault from any computer with access to the Internet. Use it to access your media files while on vacation, a multimedia presentation from a client site, or to share your media with others. You can also authorize visitors to access your Media Vault remotely so they can view the file folders you have designated for sharing. And you can grant permission for visitors to add their own files to designated folders on your Media Vault.
With HP Photo Webshare, it's easy to set up groups for sharing different photo albums. For instance, set up a photo Webshare so friends can view an album of your latest vacation; or allow family from near and far to add photos from your family reunion to create one blockbuster album.
Protect Your Data
The HP Media Vault keeps your digital life organized, accessible
and most importantly, more protected. With its 500 GB installed
capacity, it stores and protects important media and files on
computers throughout your home or small office. And with
customizable backup options your files can be automatically
protected weekly, daily or continuously. In addition, for
ultimate protection, attach a USB hard drive to your Media Vault
and backup the most important Media Vault files to take to a
separate, secure location.
The innovative new design lets you easily increase your storage as your needs evolve. Use the expansion bay on the HP Media Vault to add an extra hard drive for greater storage or the additional protection of a second mirrored copy of your data (RAID 1). For enhanced data security, use the expansion drive for creating a full backup copy of your most important files to store in a separate location.
![]() The HP Media Vault Control Center provides easy management and configuration. |
User accounts can be created on the HP Media Vault for enhanced security and to provide remote file access. Security is increased on shared folders by requiring passwords and setting read/write permissions for each user.
The HP Media Vault can also be utilized as an iTunes Music server, which will aggregate iTunes libraries from the systems on the local network and make one complete library with all music and playlists available to all iTunes clients. When enabled on a PC, the iTunes library on the PC is periodically polled to discover newly added music or videos. When new media is discovered, the files are copied to the iTunes library on the HP Media Vault where they are added to the aggregated iTunes library. (Note that only music files that are not DRM-protected can be streamed from the Media Vault.)
What's in the Box
HP Media Vault, power cable/AC adapter, Ethernet cable, software
installation disc, printed setup poster
Easy as 1-2-3Reviewed by Fashion-ista, 2010-01-27
I received the HP Media Vault on time and it was extremely easy to set up right out of the box. I have not set up the web address for external users yet. But the Vault is backing up all of my computer files daily, I feel so much more confident about the preservation of my information. I am truely happy with this purchase and would reccommend the product to anyone in the market for this type of storage.
Access Permissions Don't PersistReviewed by Zaya, 2010-01-02
I wanted to have my own user name with full access to all folders
and a guest username password abc123 for when friends came over and
wanted to watch my movies on their computers. totally didn't work.
i got locked out of my files almost completely and now have copied
them all over to my external where they will remain until i get a
new (hopefully much better) server. I'm looking at the HP
MediaSmart 490. Its running windows home server and has much more
powerful specs. For now, my old mediavault is gonna be sold to the
highest bidder (and hopefully they will have no desire for access
permissions).
Transfer speeds are OK, about 2.5megs wirelessly on a G-only router
and between 10 and 20 megs wired Ethernet transfers.
the powersupply being outside of the box creates a smaller form
factor but of course creates a flimsy connection in the back and a
power brick somewhere on the ground below it (i prefer internal
power supplies like in the hp mediasmart and the playstation 3 for
example).
1 expansion bay is alright, but if you're looking to mirror your
data for redundancy, you're pretty much limited to the 500gb drive
that's inside the device. if you're going for pure space, you could
buy a 2TB drive for relatively cheap and end up with a 2.5TB
server.
Finally, I can't stress this enough: if you want consistent
user-restricted privileges on your files/folders, do not buy this
server. This was a deal-breaker for me, and is the reason this
server only gets one star: all of the features included in a
product should actually work.
As of typing this message, I am using the most up-to-date firmware
and the problem is still here. HP doesn't make this server anymore,
so don't expect any amazing firmware fixes. I set my videos folder
to Read-Only for my Guest user name and Full Access for my user
name: even after rebooting the server and the computers I'm
accessing the server from, I still have problems creating new
folders in the videos folder, even though my user name should have
full access. I've even tried clearing my user name credentials from
windows 7 through the control panel but this did not help. The
permissions got so randomly screwed up that even the computer I
logged into with guest was able to rename and even delete files in
the videos folder (even though it was only supposed to have
read-only access to that folder).
If you need a simple media hub and don't have to worry about anyone
who might be on your network deleting your files, I'd say this
server is okay for you. You can stream music, movies and photos to
your PS3 or Xbox 360 and watch them on your TV, which is an
invaluable capability. One thing I haven't figured out yet is how
to stream pictures and videos to my HP DreamScreen digital wireless
picture frame. HP should definitely support its own ecosystem of
products - it would be nice.
So good so farReviewed by Henry Lee, 2009-09-17
After owning this Media Vault for 4 months, so far so good. Nothing bad happen yet. The drive is still working...cross my fingers. However, I still haven't figured out how to get my laptop to connect to the Vault. I installed the software and all my connections are good. But just can't get the network to work together. Oh yes, I can share files thru the web alright but again, it can't connect with my laptop.
HP's tech support on these devices is in Canada !Reviewed by B. Scordinsky, 2009-08-12
The 2120 box is pretty good. I have 2 500GB Seagate drives and a 500GB WD Green Caviar as USB backup. I used to have an older MSS plus that didn't have the redundancy I needed which is why I went with the HP. It has gig ethernet which allows the box to support sustained 17MB/sec transmission to the storage system. I had to crack it open to swap out drives and taking a look on the inside I think design is nicely done. I was really impressed by the tech support that is available for these devices. I've been able to get through to HP support without waiting. The best part about it is that I talked with very knowledgeable folks that helped me resolve all of my issues. I come from an IT background and I have to say the support guys running the show for this group are top notch. I would buy this product just because support is really that good !
Its good and frustrating at the same time....Reviewed by James Ng, 2009-07-25
The HP MV 2120 is a good NAS that falls short of being great.
The good:
Back up software can back up all your key files automatically and
even keep a few revisions.
It supports gigabit ethernet, so the transfer rates are really
limited to the OS and the Hard Drive speeds.
Easy to set up and having running quickly.
You can back up to any USB external HDD for redundancy.
Bad:
No easy way to restore from the backup. Make sure when you are
backing up to the USB, you are using FAT, otherwise, Windows will
not recognize the data.
No support for NTFS on the US back up drive. NTFS is so much more
reliable and faster and more efficient then FAT. Surely HP could
have found a way
When using 2 drives, they are imaged into one drive. That is a
positive and a negative. Postive is having much more flexibility
and not running out of drive space when 1 drive is full. Bad part
is when 1 drive fails, your whole system fails and you need to
depend on your USB back up.
With HDDs being so cheap nowadays, its concievable that the drive
quality is lesser and life expectancy is lowered. It really does
require plans to add redundancy to ensure all your photos are safe.
I have copies here on the MV2120, on my PC and also in a copy in a
back up USB drive. I have lost thousands of pictures once when my
PC HDD failed. I won't take that chance a second time.
If you want more then 2 bays, I would get the server version of
this. Its worth the price to get more bays.