Customer Reviews

Microsoft Windows Home Server OEM

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

What I did: got an OEM copy of the software (it's like XP Media Center - MS doesn't want to sell these without hardware) and bought a PC off of UBID - a refurbished unit with the specs to handle this OS. Because the experience is designed to be hassle-free out of the box, MS isn't encouraging do-it-yourselfers to get the product at retail. And yet, I wanted my own machine to save money and to play with the install to see how it went.

In a word, (almost) flawless. I got the ubid pc with windows home basic on it, and popped in the WHS DVD. It installed with minimal input from me, and booted right up.

There was one error message, because I was using a do-it-yourself machine, I needed to install the network drivers for my particular box. The error message and troubleshooting guide led me directly to the problem. Because this is Windows at its core, I went to the internet and downloaded an old XP driver for my network card, and it installed without a problem. I was a little bit worried that there would be a compatibility issue, but it has worked flawlessly since I installed the net driver.

Bottom line: this unit is great. It works completely as advertised, and I'm anxious to set this box up as an iTunes server, a media server for WMAs, a repository for recorded media center TV shows, and because this is a windows box at its core, it won't be long before someone ports a torrent client over to this box and has it trickling content 24-7.

The machine I used has 512k, a 1.7 amd chip, and a couple of hard drives. Any old tower case will have enough drive bays for expansion, and this one has plenty. I can fit 4 or 5 more drives in there as I need them, and the whole hardware setup cost about $340 for 650 gig of redundant storage.

Great work, Microsoft. Now get out there and tell people about this product.

Chances are in your house you have several computers, maybe a laptop or two and a desktop in the den or the your kids room. All these machines serve different functions -- one is for your business, one might be for storing digital pictures and the kids may use theirs for playing games. They are all different and even though they reside under the same roof it is next to impossible to share files with them all and when it comes to backup -- well, just ask yourself this, when is the last time you backed any of them up? You are a digital home but a connected home you are not.

Enter Microsoft's newest product, Windows Home Server. A revolutionary product that offers consumers centralized storage and backups in their households with a product that you plug in and literally let it run without any intervention on your part.

Windows Home Server makes the concept of a connected home a reality in a simple, easy to use package that will bring your entire digital family together in one place. Imagine never having to worry about backups again because they are taken automatically, every night, while you sleep. Think of how easy it would be to share digital pictures, movies and files with your family without having to e-mail them or put them on USB fobs that always seem to get lost. What if you could check to make sure your kids have their anti-virus protection running without having to check their computer manually? How about never having to worry about your precious family photos, home videos and important documents getting lost because of a computer crash thanks to data redundancy?

If these sound like your idea of a dream, then dream no more. All these features and more await you in Windows Home Server.

The idea is simple. Put a machine (doesn't have to be too powerful) in an out of the way location in the house. It doesn't need a keyboard or a mouse, just hard drives. But wait, even the hard drives don't have to be all the same or fit inside the box. You can hook up any combination of hard disks you want -- from internal to external USB and firewire drives. Windows Home Server manages them for you, creating one big pool of disk space that is duplicated across the drives -- so if one fails, you don't lose one byte of data!

Backups are a breeze as well; every night Windows Home Server backups up files from all the connected PC's and stores them on the server. However, it doesn't just back up files -- it intelligently decides which files are different, and which aren't and doesn't backup duplicates. So if everyone in your house has Microsoft Word installed, it won't create 5 backup copies of it. Just one copy which all 5 computers can restore from!

Traveling and need access to your Powerpoint presentation or important document? Fire up a web browser and securely access any file stored on the server! Better yet, remote connect to any computer in your household running Windows Vista or XP and use it as if you were sitting right in front of it. All from a secure web browser!

One more thing for all you XBOX 360 owners out there, or those of you who have digital picture frames that are network-aware -- Windows Home Server has the ability to stream content to your XBOX 360 and to your digital picture frames! Functionality "out of the box", which will no doubt be extended further as third party applications start to appear thanks to the Windows Home Server Software Development Kit (SDK) that Microsoft has released for WHS.

In Windows Home Server Microsoft has created a product (based off of Windows 2003 Server) that any household can use and enjoy without having to worrying about "IT Support". The product just simply works, and needs almost zero maintenance. Watch for vendors such as HP to come out with pre-configured "appliances" this fall such as the HP EX475 MediaSmart Home Server (AMD Live/ 64 Bit Sempron Processor, 1 TB Hard Drive) or use spare hardware you already have in your house to "roll your own" by purchasing this OEM software kit. Either way, your home will change forever and become not just a digital home, but a connected home where everyone can share data and have a safe, enjoyable experience using their machines.

After installing Windows Home Server on an old PC and adding four 500GB drives for $400, I effectively have a full featured NAS* file server with the added benefit of it being my home based webserver running the Windows 2003 IIS. If you have an old PC, why spend hundreds more to buy one of the NAS* disk devices with practically no features other than serving up files. WHS also provides a good backup system too that lets you backup your home PCs with little management effort.

* Note: I mistakenly wrote SAN instead of NAS in the first version of this review as pointed out in the comments to this review. I hope all can rest easier now that this has been fixed :-)

I finally bought my daughter a lap top, so ended up with a two year old Shuttle 2.4 G P4, 1Gb. I bought two WD 640 GB HD and had a WD 500 GB My Book. Installed WHS without issue, took everything off (keyboard, mouse, monitor) and I have been very happy ever since. No more reminding family to back up; no more exchanging music or photos using thumb drives. Ended up with a quiet, 1.5 TByte perfect backup and sharing solution.
Next I am wiring the house for gigabyte network (cat6) in all rooms and getting draft "n" fro the lappies.
A solid server for the non sys adinm.

I bought them item after Power Pack 1 came out. It is a perfect home server product. It backs up all my computers everynight without fail and even will wake up my laptop (wireless connection) from hibernation to backup. It makes it very easy manage the drives and duplication. I signed up for the jungle disk beta for online storage and now I am not worried about data loss.

Being a .net developer I was happy with how easy it was to make addins for the console. I installed vmware workstation on the server and am working on an addin to help control my virtual machines.

The only annoyance that I have is with adding drives. From what I understand if I want to add a drive, all the data on that drive will be erased when its added to the server. This was a problem for me since I have drives that I want to add to the server, but they contain lots of my data. I had to make sure I pulled off my data first before adding it to the server. Of course this wouldn't be a problem if I would just buy some new drives, but I am cheap and using all the drives I have had laying around.

Overall...Excellent product!

This is a very good choice for the person who doesn't want to spend a lot of time managing a full blown server OS. The backup feature is fast and you can actualy fully recover an average WinXP PC in about 10 minutes booting from the recovery CD. The remote access feature is great as well.

I have been running Windows Home Server since the Beta went live, and it makes my home storage and backup issues simple and elegant. Between my wife and daughters PC, I know have a way for them all to share files easily and keep backups of their PC's in case of problems. It's rare that a new software OS product doesn't require a large investment in hardware, but I think MS finally took it into account that not everyone wants to drop a few grand on new innovations.

Great product. Installed on an older Pentium 4 that I no longer use as a mainstream computer. No problems at all with the installation, and setup was easy. Have all my family computers (4) connected and backing up each day.

After trying several Linux solutions (which all had one problem or another) I installed Windows Home Server on a trial basis. Everything worked exactly as advertised. I was apprehensive, because of the reports about currupted data in WHS but the most recent update has fixed that problem. Connection to all six of our computers was seamless and simple. Backups occur daily without any problems and access to pictures, video and sound files has been without any problems.

I decided to switch from using a regular desktop with shared folders to a server because of the backup functions. I knew there were some plugins out there, but now I am blown away by the number of functions I can do.

I am planning to build a house soon, and now I am actually considering a fully automated lighting/ac/electrical system run through Windows Home Server. If my wife forgets to turn off her curling iron ever again, I'll be able to log in and shut down the bathroom power!

Consider me a HUGE fan of Windows Home Server.