Monthly Archives: May 2011


HP MediaVault Generation 1: Getting New Life from an Old Friend

Do you have a HP Generation 1 MediaVault (2010-2050) with a bad motherboard or maybe you just want more power or want to change its functionality? Read on, this article is for you! History: Back around 2006 HP released the Generation 1 MediaVault NAS (models 2010-2050). All were hardware identical except for the drive size provided. This product offered features like file sharing, media sharing (such as streaming music, videos, movies) and digital pictures. It also provided a secure source for local PC backups and internet access. One important feature was the ability to mirror it's 2 internal SATA drives. The Gen. 1 platform was later redesigned and updated to become the HP MediaVault 2100 and 5100/5200 series. These look like mini HP Mediasmart servers with only 2 drives and feature a different processor and file system. HP offered a Raid 1 "like" mirror system based on the Reiser file system which in theory was a good idea but actually created a number of complications for the user. If a secondary drive failed it was somewhat easy to replace and restore but when the system encountered a primary drive failure special procedures were required to insure the data on the...