Heya everyone, i like many of you have probably been keeping an eye on the progress of the Windows Home Server operating system, the apparent perfect installation for all thos home media buff who keep Gig’s and Gigs of media stored on their HDD’s (most of it probably illegal, or in true terms, porn !)

Well, finally a release candidate appeared on the web a little while back for us to all have a play with, gotta say, its interesting ! The main aims of WHS (Windows Home Server) is to satrisfy the gap in the home entertainmen market and provide a back end to streaming media onto Windows Media Centers (2005 or Vista) and also their XBOX consoles. The O/S is built onto Windows 2003 Server, taking advantage of its reliability and robust secure environment but also adding several consumer friendly features:

• Software RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) with the ability to turn on and off folder replication.
• Simplified user setup.
• Remote administration interface run from a PC connected to the network.
• Internet access to shared folders and user folders on the Server.
• Access to PCs on the network from anywhere.
• Automated health check for the server, disks and networked computers.
• Automated backup of networked PCs.
• DNLA compliant for streaming video, music and pictures to any DNLA compliant device such as XBox360, PlayStation 3, Wii and Broadband Media Receivers (BMR)

Its gotta be said that its kinda picky about what systems it can be intalled upon, making sure that the primary windows HDD is above 70GB for instance (Obviously not really a problem considering ya cant buy anything less than 80 Now-a-days).

The management of the system once installed is a simple and very easy to get around, Microsoft has made a good job of making this idiot proof, shares and permissions, even adding and removing users is very simple to achieve (very quickly). A choice of management platforms is available, either from direct access to the machine and the Home Server Management console, or by enabling it, a web based interface, which looks almost identical !

A selection of Advanced settings allow for a little more control over the server, with things such as backup schedules and password strength configuration. The configuration of Remote access to the server even allows for the usage of UPNP to auto configure your home router for access, although not completly successful all the time !

Manual configuration using Ports 435, 4125, 443 & 80.

Overall, I can see the benefits of this for people who wanna save a couple of quid, but personally, my gods to honest opinion ‘I HATE DYNAMIC DISK RAID ARRAYS’ its just a bad concept (great theory, but shit in reality). I would never trust the management of a set of Hard disks running RAID5 Parity of a 2TB array to Microsoft Windows, its already got enough to worry about trying not to crash every 10 mins, but adding the extra workload of RAID into the mix makes me wanna cry.

Iv actually got a friend who runs a software raid inside windows XP professional, and every time it hiccups and has to re-build i can hear him crying from my house… The Home Server is, again, a nice concept, another jewel in Microsofts big-ass crown, but im not sure where the benefits of this truly lye other than simplicity for idiots who cant be assed to buy “Server 2003 for Idiots”… it doesnt really add much extra to what you would get from doing a standard install of Windows Server 2003 and setting up some users and shares (or even starting your own domain with ‘dcpromo’), but Home Server does take a away a lot of features from 2003 (or at least hides them, go hunting and im sure their shortcuts have just been removed from the start menu lol)

Final Opinion - Nah, just get a copy of 2003 and do it yourself with a nice Hardware RAID card !