Storage

Cracking Open the MV5100 HP Media Vault

By · March 12, 2009, 1:14 AM PST

Image 1 of 35

  • Mugshot #1

    The HP Media Vault brings network attached storage to the masses in an affordable and easily configurable way.

    With hard drive prices falling and digital media use soaring, it was only a matter of time until the demand for user friendly NAS boxes were high enough to warrant a product such as the HP Media Vault.

    Having had a RAID-5 home server for over 8 years for storage of photos, mp3s, videos, college documents etc, I was eager to crack this product open and see what made it tick.

    Front shot, door closed. The HP Media Vault is, by NAS comparison, tiny. It's only 5.5" high.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Box

    I know how crazy you all get about boxes so here it is.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Box 2

    Try to contain yourself.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Box 3



    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Box 4



    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Contents

    Inside the box was a manual, quick start guide (fold out poster), 2 CDs, power cable, network cable, and the media vault itself.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Mugshot #2

    Rear Shot. (wolf whistle) From here you can see the rj45 port, power adapter port, and the Kensington security slot.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Mugshot #3 w/refreshment (for scale)

    Sideshot - left.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Mugshot #4 w/refreshment (for scale)

    Sideshot - right.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Mugshot #5 w/refreshment (for scale)

    Top Shot.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Open sesame

    Opening the front door reveals the removable hard drive tray at the top. Also the front of the unit gives access to a USB 2.0 port.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Tis but a scratch

    Removing the drive was easy enough. Lift on the removable drive handle and pull forward.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Don't label me

    The drives in the unit are Seagate 750gb ST3750640AS SATAs. 7200RPM 16MB cache SATA 300.

    I tried to verify the warranty status of the drive but it returned a status of "component drive" (The product you identified was sold as a system component. Please contact your place of purchase for service.)

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • And so it begins..

    Four screws and the front plate was easily removed. This gave access to the internal hard drive and the motherboard.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Door off the hinges

    A single screw at the bottom of the door held it in place. The top of the door was held in place by a molded plastic post on the door.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Different kind of drive flashing

    Here's the front-less view of unit.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Front-less #2

    Different angle of front-less view.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Left side removal

    To remove the side facade, you just need to depress the tab inside the front middle. In this picture, you can see where the rectangular hole is on the inside side wall, near the front. That's where there tab held the side in place.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Right side removal 1

    Same as before, depress tab and side removed easily.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Right side removal 2

    Same as before, depress tab and side removed easily.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Internal Drive removal

    The drive simply pulls out.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Rear view

    Two black screws on each side of the rear are all that holds on the back of the case.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Removing the rear 4 screws easily detached the rear of the case. From here I unplugged the fan and un-routed the wires.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Rear view

    From the rear you can see two SATA power cables, two data power cables and a motherboard power cable that are screaming to be removed.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • It's not enough to unplug

    I probably could have just unplugged the SATA connectors, but they were easily removed by removing two screws each. From there they easily lifted out.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Time to remove the brains

    Sorry for the depth of field issue here. My fancy camera can sometimes be smarter than me.

    From here you can (sort of) see that I removed the two screws holding in the motherboard. Now that there were no SATA cables holding the motherboard in place, the motherboard easily slid out.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Mobo tray slides out

    Motherboard slid right out.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Full shot of motherboard

    Not much to say here, full shot of motherboard. Closeup shots will follow.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Closeup mobo 1



    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Closeup mobo 2



    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Closeup mobo 3



    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Closeup mobo 4



    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Closeup mobo 5



    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • Closeup mobo 7



    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

  • All tore down and no where to go

    Here are all the parts that tore down. I could have torn the hard drives down some more, but I think TechRepublic wanted back a working unit.

    Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic

Mugshot #1

The HP Media Vault brings network attached storage to the masses in an affordable and easily configurable way.

With hard drive prices falling and digital media use soaring, it was only a matter of time until the demand for user friendly NAS boxes were high enough to warrant a product such as the HP Media Vault.

Having had a RAID-5 home server for over 8 years for storage of photos, mp3s, videos, college documents etc, I was eager to crack this product open and see what made it tick.

Front shot, door closed. The HP Media Vault is, by NAS comparison, tiny. It's only 5.5" high.

Photos by Scott Wolf for © TechRepublic
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Storage Hardware Data Centers Networking Innovation Big Data Analytics Security
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