First Looks
The TS Mini has a small footprint, as those of you who saw the blurry spy shots of the product in September will recall.
It’s not going to win too many awards for industrial design, but ASUS have tried to pretty up a relatively basic chassis by cladding in the same piano black plastic you’ll find on most home servers at the moment. It’s small size however means that you should be able to tuck it away in a cupboard, or under the TV with no problems.
Up Front
The front of the TS Mini has no power controls (you’ll find the power button on the top), but you’ll find indicator lights for power, networking, and your two internal hard drives.
Around the Back
The rear of ASUS’ model is very tidy – the USB and eSATA fest is neatly lined up at the top of the box, with Ethernet and power sockets at the rear. A Kensington lock is provided for additional security (which is a neat addition given the fact that you don’t want your data to be stolen) and if you look carefully, you’ll also spot a recessed button between the USB and eSATA ports which places the home server in recovery mode.
So, you’ve looked at the shots and I know you’re scratching your head asking one question. Where are the air vents? Interestingly, ASUS have positioned the air vents for cooling the TS Mini at the top of the home server, rather than the traditional position of the side or the rear of the chassis, which improves the aesthetics greatly. The downside is that you’ll need to be careful not to place any objects on the top of the product which could block the vents.
Bundled Add-ins
Most home servers emerging from major manufacturers are now shipping with additional software in the form of Windows Home Server add-ins, which extend the platform in different ways. Actually, a lack of imagination leads to manufacturers shipping very similar add-ins – you’ll generally find DLNA/uPnP Media Server, power management and hardware monitoring applications in most boxes.
Not so ASUS, who have put a little more thought into their add-in offer. That said, the execution of these add-ins isn’t perfect.
ASUS Xtor Manager
The ASUS Xtor Manager add-in will help you easily and directly back up, synchronise and manage files and folders on external USB and eSATA drives attached to the home server. You’ll see in the WHS Console that once an external drive is plugged in, you’ll find easy links to an embedded File Manager, an external hard drive backup feature as well as a synchronisation option which will copy files between the external drive and the home server.
The File Manager is a great app in itself and allows you to create, rename and delete new folders, drag and drop files to enable copying between the home server and external drives, as well as right click to copy those files over.
The Backup option allows you to easily backup files and folders held on an external drive to your home server. To backup, simply plug in the drive, select the files and folders you wish to back up, select a location for that backup and off you go.
