We Got Served

If you’ve ended up here at We Got Served, you may have some idea of what a home server is, but for the uninitiated, and as a refresher for those with a little more experience, your home server odyssey begins with two pretty fundamental questions. What is a home server? And, Why do I need one?

Let’s see if we can answer both questions in this introductory article.

What is a Home Server?

A home server is a computer, similar to other computers in your home, but with a specific role, or number of roles depending on your needs. The home server connects to your home network and for most users, those roles include the following: storing and sharing files to multiple home computers (i.e. a desktop computer or laptop), streaming music, videos and photos to networked media devices (e.g. digital media receivers such as the Logitech Squeezebox, Netgear Entertainer, Media Center Extenders and even digital photo frames) automatically backing up home computers each night and enabling remote access to various computers and devices on the network when you’re away from home.

You may have heard the term “Network Attached Storage” or “NAS” to describe similar devices. Whilst the distinction between a NAS device and a home server is blurry to say the least, generally NAS devices are low powered devices with minimal memory and processing power and tend to run a flavour of Linux. They excel equally to a home server in terms of networked storage and media streaming, but generally do not provide the advanced backup and remote access features of a home server, which will also come with a faster processor and more memory. NAS devices do tend to be cheaper than home servers, however, thanks to lower component costs and free Linux operating system. Whilst home servers launched at a premium to NAS devices, their cost is slowly dropping to compete more effectively in the marketplace.

A Brief Introduction to Windows Home Server

Spotting an increasing trend of consumers in the western world purchasing multiple PCs and holding increasingly large collections of digital media, such as music, videos and photos with little real support to protect those “digital memories”, Microsoft launched a new operating system called Windows Home Server in 2007. Windows Home Server is a full-blown server OS as you would find in Enterprise, with many of the more advanced features hidden away and a friendly, easy to use dashboard helping you manage key features, which are as follows:

Automatic Backup and Easy Restore – Automatically backs up up to 10 PCs in your home each evening, with the ability to open up and navigate through each day’s backup and restore a single file, an entire folder or quickly reinstall the entire computer complete with all files, user data and drivers intact, thanks to its image based backup technology.

Folder Duplication – added protection of the data on your shared folders (in case of drive failure), by duplicating that data to a separate physical drive (if connected).

External Backup – further protection of your shared folders by copying all data to en external USB drive for off-site storage.

Health Warnings – Monitors all computers connected to the home server (courtesy of a small dashboard application called the Windows Home Server Console  you install on each computer in the home) and detects issues with anti-virus and firewall status, using a simple “traffic light” (Red, Amber Green) warning system. Can also alert users to issues with the home server itself.

File Sharing – Shared folders on the home server act as central repositories for documents, music, videos and photos. Any authorised home computer and user on the network can then access those folders to add more files, copy and delete files as well and stream media files to an appropriate networked playback device.

Printer Sharing – Connect a printer to the home server and any home computer can print to it.

Remote Access – A free URL (xxxx.homeserver.com) is provided for every home server to allow users to connect to it remotely from any location with Internet Access. Users can then access folders on the home server itself, or control any authorised home computer directly using Remote Desktop.

Media Streaming – Stream music, videos and photos to a wide variety of playback devices on your network, including digital media receivers, Media Center Extenders, networked TVs, digital photo frames, networked Hi-Fis etc.

Add-Ins – A thriving and growing library of third-party applications providing additional features for your home server including power management, enhanced media streaming, hard disk management and more. Check out Home Server Plus for a full list.

Why Do I Need a Home Server?

Hopefully the list of features above provide a few pointers as to why you need a home server, but the headline is this – if you have multiple PCs in your home (for you, your partner, perhaps also a couple of computers for the kids too) and a growing collection of music, videos and photos, then all of those files need looking after. If a computer breaks, a drive fails or the kids accidentally wipe out a folder then those files could be lost forever.

A home server not only takes the pain out of protecting those files by automatically backing up each of those computers overnight, but also makes it much more easy to enjoy your music, video and photos thanks to its easy folder sharing and media streaming capabilities – both in the home, and increasingly, outside the home through internet streaming add-ins allowing you to stream you collections to remote computers and mobile phones.

OK, I Want One – What Are My Options?

Depending on your technical ability, and where you live, prospective home server owners have a few options available to acquire their first system.

Build: You can build your home server, or re-purpose an old computer to use as your home server (the hardware requirements aren’t too excessive for a home server, so that old PC in the corner of the room may just have a new lease of life!). Once you have your hardware sorted out (we’ll cover this in a separate Get Started guide) then you need to purchase a copy of the Windows Home Server OS to install on the hardware. This isn’t available from the usual big box stores like Best Buy or PC World, but from online dealers like Amazon or Newegg. It’ll cost you between $70 – 99 depending on how strong your bargain hunting skills are!

Buy: Pre-installed home servers have taken a while to come to market globally. In the US, (and from Q4 2009 in Europe) HP’s MediaSmart Server is available with a variety of models at a range of price-points. Acer’s Aspire easyStore Home Server is launching mid-2009 with wider availability in North America, Europe and Asia. Other manufacturers include Fujitsu-Siemens, Tranquil PC, Epson and there are also a growing number of smaller system builders also assembling and distributing home servers. Check out We Got Served’s Hardware Reviews to find out much more about the systems currently available.

What Does the Future Hold for Home Servers?

As with any new technology, it takes time for adoption to grow. We’re now two years into the life of Windows Home Server and the number of home servers out there in the world is probably less than 500,000 right now, so we’re still in early adopter territory. Many of the big technology analysts are predicting sales of 5 to 10 million home servers over the next few years, so there’s a lot of good news on the way.

Hardware manufacturers are increasingly delivering lower costs home servers into the marketplace to drive adoption, and Microsoft are hard at work on the next major version of Windows Home Server (codenamed “Vail”) which will be based on the latest version of Windows Server (utilising the Windows 7 platform) and is due to be released in 2010. Little is known about this new version but it is predicted to include many more media sharing and management features, amongst other new capabilities. We’ll continue to keep you informed on future developments here at WGS.

What’s Next?

In the next part of our Get Started Guide, we’ll take a more detailed look at Windows Home Server hardware, and walkthrough a step by step guide to building a home server!