Windows Home Server Announced

During the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show or CES in Las Vegas, Microsoft revealed its plans to release Windows Home Server (WHS). Planned to be released in late 2007, Windows Home Server will be marketed to families with 2 or more computers in their home. Some of the key features include:

• Centralized backups of connected PCs


• Act as a central hub for media and files to connected Microsoft PCs and devices.


• Remote sharing of content stored on the home server
  

Check out Paul Thurrott's most excellet winsupersite for a full review. Interestingly, Paul Thurott mentions the possibility of buying just the WHS OS and installing it on any old hardware. However, other reviews state that you will only be able to buy it as an embedded OS appliance. According to Engadget:

• Units are headless and embedded only -- you cannot buy WHS and put it on an old PC.
• There is no common web interface. Interaction is entirely client software based, or done over SMB.
• It cannot directly stream media to Media Center Extenders, but it can stream media directly to Windows Media Connect-enabled devices.
• It does not use RAID, but instead uses a RAID-like drive pooling system with built-in redundancy. Expanding capacity is as simple as adding additional drives internally or externally via USB. We can't say for sure, but we have a feeling if you were to unplug that external drive, your data wouldn't go with it since it's probably spanned across the array.
• The client software, which is installable only on Windows PCs (duh) monitors PC health, manages backups, and supports full disk images and versions. If your computer crashes hard you can pop in an restore CD and it'll pull the disk image over the network.
• Your WHS device gets registered with your Windows Live account and is made easily-findable by authorized parties (i.e. you and anyone you designate) while on the go. You can even connect to it via Live and pipe a Remote Desktop connection to a PC on your home network through this Home-finding Live feature.

I think the backup capability of WHS is probably the single best redeeming feature. However, nearly all the features listed can be obtained through other free or extremely inexpensive means such as online backups via carbonite.com, media sharing through orb and Network Attached Storage (NAS) through FreeNas. So it seems to me that WHS will not be a big hit with the Techie crowd but it will be interesting to see what the folks at Hack A Day come up with if it is released as an appliance. Heck, I would buy the cool looking glowing applicance just for the cool factor... and turn it into a Linux box.