New Year’s Eve is a special time at We Got Served, as it’s the day the winners of this year’s Reader Awards are announced!
We’ve had thousands of votes this year from readers all over the world in our four categories: Best Windows Home Server Hardware, Best Digital Media Receiver, Best Windows Home Server Software and Best Windows Home Server Add-In.
We’re not going to keep you waiting any longer – here are your winners!
Best Windows Home Server Hardware
A hard fought battle this year with a strong selection of barebones systems from the likes of Chenbro, premium home servers from Hush and a number of launches this year from Britain’s Tranquil PC.
3rd Place: Chenbro ES34069 Home Server Chassis
We praised the Chenbro chassis back in March for its great looks and ease of storage expansion. We certainly feel it’s the best barebones home server on the market today, and it looks like you agree.
2nd Place: Tranquil PC SQA-5H
Last year’s runner up is a runner up once again in 2008, although it was a very very close race. The Squash server was actually our favourite home server of this year, with five storage bays, a cute form factor and a number of hardware innovations unseen on any other home server cleverly taking advantage of new home server backup features built into Power Pack 1. But these are Readers Awards rather than Writers Awards, and the people have spoken. So it’s congratulations to….
WGS Reader Award 2008 for Best Windows Home Server Hardware:
Fujitsu-Siemens SCALEO Home Server
Congratulations go to Germany, where Fujitsu-Siemens SCALEO Home Server has scooped our top hardware award! We reviewed the Scaleo back in April and loved how easy it was to upgrade. A strong hardware spec (strengthened further later in the year with a new revision) and a range of bundled add-ins create a fantastic package that’s a deserving winner of Best Windows Home Server Hardware of 2008.
Best Digital Media Receiver
A new category for us this year as increasing numbers of us are using networked audio and video players with Windows Home Server. Again, voting was very tight in this category with strong representation for all of the nominees. But there can only be one winner, and here’s how you voted.
3rd Place: Sony Playstation 3
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A shock result perhaps, but understandable given a variety of issues readers have experienced this year trying to play content stored on their home servers on the PS3. Great games and a blu-ray drive weren’t enough for Sony to get to first place this year.
2nd Place: HP MediaSmart Connect X280n
The runners up position for this debut year goes to HP, whose MediaSmart Connect works well with both Windows Media Center and Windows Home Server, giving many users the best of both worlds. However a lack of software updates since release and nervousness about HP’s withdrawal from their MediaSmart TV business may have lost votes for the X280n.
WGS Reader Award 2008 for Best Digital Media Receiver:
Xbox 360
The winner of 2008’s Best Digital Media Receiver is actually the oldest hardware nominated. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 comes with a host of media download and streaming options any many still believe it’s the best Media Center Extender on the market. From a home server point of view, compatibility with Windows Media Connect means that many of you love how it can play music, video and photos directly from your home server with ease.
Best Windows Home Server Software
So on to our software awards, starting with commercial software. The Best Windows Home Server Software category was keenly fought, with a growing number of commercial applications being released for the platform this year.
3rd Place: Diskeeper 2009 HomeServer
Last year’s runner up drops into third place this year with it’s 2009 revision. With competition being hot in the disk defragmentation space, you’ve told us that Diskeeper is still a must-have application for Windows Home Server.
2nd Place: My Movies for Windows Home Server
Whilst it’s only been on the scene for a short while, Brian Binnerup’s My Movies for Windows Home Server is already a big favourite with We Got Served readers. Offering CD and DVD ripping as well as movie archiving, the application highlights the potential of Windows Home Server to act as a home media hub. We’re looking forward to seeing how My Movies develops next year.
WGS Reader Award 2008 for Best Windows Home Server Software:
TwonkyMedia Server
Bundled with the Scaleo and HP MediaSmart Server as an add-in, but also available to self-builders in a standalone form, this year’s Best Windows Home Server Software winner does a fantastic, but sometimes overlooked, job of improving Windows Home Server’s media streaming capabilities. TwonkyMedia Server upgrades WHS to full DLNA compliance, ensuring that a wider variety of devices around the home can see, connect to and playback a vast array of file formats from you home server.
Much like Windows Home Server itself, once it’s configured, it sits in the background and does its job brilliantly – we’re big fans of the application here at WGS (although we still can’t understand why a proper WHS add-in hasn’t been released for sale) so we’re delighted to hand over the reader’s award to TwonkyMedia Server.
Best Windows Home Server Add-In
The Best Windows Home Server Add-in Award is always our most popular category, and is awarded to the best free/community developed add-in for the platform. Last year, the prize was won by Andrew Grant for his WHS Website add-in, Whiist. With over 70 add-ins now available for Windows Home Server, competition here is fierce!
3rd Place: LightsOut
Martin Rothschink’s power management add-in has just been reviewed by us here at WGS and we loved how easy it was to power on and off computers on the network and indeed schedule when the home server itself was in use using simple calendar-based controls. Martin is also very active in supporting LightsOut users over at the WGS Forums and we’re looking forward to great things from the add-in in 2009.
2nd Place: WHS Disk Management
Sam Wood’s disk management add-in for Windows Home Server is a big favourite of many readers here at WGS. It builds on the management features available in the product with detailed statistics on the performance and health of your hard drives, provides useful drive renaming abilities and has a great interface allowing you to visualise the drives you’re working with at any given time.
And in first place……
WGS Reader Award 2008 for Best Windows Home Server Add-In:
Grid Junction
The winner of this year’s Best Windows Home Server Add-in goes to Grid Junction, the UPS monitoring and management application from Kentdome Technologies. The add-in integrates seamlessly with the Windows Home Server Console to issue power alerts and help protect WHS from power problems such as brownouts, or blackouts by safely powering down the Windows Home Server when battery levels reach a set threshold.
With data being of utmost importance, it’s vital that your home server is protected from electrical problems, and you’ve voted in your hundreds to make Grid Junction your winner of the Best Windows Home Server Add-in of 2008.
Phew! Well that concludes the WGS Reader Awards for another year. Thanks to everyone who voted this year, congratulations to all nominated, and a hearty well done to the winners in each category. Let’s look forward to a great 2009 and see if we can spot next year’s winners in amongst the various software and hardware releases next year.
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