We Got Served

We’re coming up to the last week of the year, and that can only mean one thing…. yes, it’s time for the third annual We Got Served Reader Awards 2009!

2009 has been a busy year in the home server world, with many new manufacturers releasing hardware, and new community add-ins released which do a great job of providing new features for the platform. As usual, this year’s awards will be judged by a reader vote, from a shortlist nominated by the WGS writers and forum moderators – but before we announce the nominees, let’s remind ourselves who won last year’s awards:

Best Windows Home Server Hardware 2008: Fujitsu-Siemens SCALEO Home Server

A surprising result last year, as I was convinced that Tranquil PC would claim the prize with their excellent SQA-5H, which was smaller than FSC’s model and came with more drives. But, the WGS readers spoke!

Best Digital Media Receiver 2008: Xbox 360

Second prize wasn’t enough to stop HP cancelling their MediaSmart Connect line early in 2009, but it was Microsoft’s (still) excellent Xbox 360 which took the plaudits last year.

Best Windows Home Server Software 2008: TwonkyMedia Server

Even without a standalone add-in for system builders last year, Twonky still managed to walk away with the award for their excellent DLNA compliant media server software.

Best Windows Home Server Add-In 2008: Grid Junction

Your prize for 2008’s best add-in went to Kentdome Technologies for their Grid Junction UPS add-in for Windows Home Server.

So to 2009, where we’ve seen a new crop of add-in developers step into the ring, new manufacturers release Windows Home Server hardware, and the category begin to expand and grow. To be eligible for nomination, the product (or major update to the product) must have been released in this calendar year (from Jan 1st 2009) – there are always old favourites we want to vote for, but the awards are for this year’s products!

Ladies and gentlemen, here are the nominations for the We Got Served Reader Awards 2009!

Best Small Windows Home Server Hardware 2009

A plethora of choice in the category this year, with a variety of home server form factors emerging. In fact, we’ve seen two distinct format emerge, the larger 4+ bay multi-drive home server as well as the smaller, cheaper 1-2 bay systems. As a result, it’s only fair that we split the hardware category into two, as each form factor has a specific target audience and feature set.

In the new Small Hardware category (1-2 bays) we saw great new models enter the market from manufacturers such as HP with their LX195 MediaSmart Server, a beautiful piece of styling from RipNAS, VIA’s Artigo A2000 barebones system which was a compact 2 drive model, as well as the ASUS Home Server TS Mini, which appeared this month. It certainly seems as if the cheaper end of the home server market was well served this year, but which model do you think was the best? Feel free to re-read the reviews of each and then place your vote below.

Best Large Windows Home Server Hardware 2009

But 2009 wasn’t just about the little guys! At the other end of the spectrum we saw a lot of activity in the 4+ bay arena too. HP refreshed their EX 490 Series MediaSmart Server line with two new models and found time to release a small business variant in the shape of the X510 Data Vault. They were joined by major competition in the form of Acer, who released the Aspire EasyStore Home Server globally this year, combining great features and sharp pricing. Finally, there’s Lenovo, who surprised us with their IdeaCenter D400 model this year which took a unique look at home server styling.

Best Digital Media Receiver 2009

We expect this category to be closely fought! At the beginning of the year, HDHomeRun finally appeared outside the USA, offering networked TV tuners to the UK and Australasia – a truly excellent product. Popcorn Hour’s C-200 established itself as a firm favourite with media enthusiasts everywhere, but had competition in the form of the Xtreamer Media Player which offered similar features at a low, low price. We were also impressed by the QNAP NMP-1000 which pushed media around our digital homes very well in test.

Best Windows Home Server Software 2009

There hasn’t been too much new news in the commercial software category this year, but we have seen a couple of our favourite community add-ins develop paid-for variants, so they’ll pop across into the commercial category from this year. A good example of this is LightsOut which was released in v1.0 form this week. My Movies for Windows Home Server is a perennial favourite, and also received a number of updates through the year. As usual, Diskeeper and PerfectDisk released enhancements for their disk defragmentation software for Windows Home Server, and both are in with a shout of winning the award. Last year’s winner, TwonkyMedia Server is back, this time with the much-needed standalone media server add-in for the platform. Finally, Time Traveler for Windows Home Server was recently released and offers the ability to rollback to previous version of files and folders stored in your home server’s shared folders.

Best Windows Home Server Add-in 2009

Now we come to the category that’s always the closest fought – who will win your vote for the Best Windows Home Server add-in for 2009? The Windows Home Server platform has continued to grow this year with many more applications appearing, and the quality of those add-ins has also been increasing too.

The WGS team have selected some of their favourites for voting, and they include: @WHSTweet which reports your home server’s status via Twitter, AutoExit 2009 for Windows Home Server, which had a big boost this year with a new version, P80 which allows you to view a wide range of diagnostic information about your home server from the remote website, WHS PHP/MySQL/Wordpress is a trio of add-ins which work together to bring the popular web publishing platform to Windows Home Server, WHS Health, a new add-in which publishes Windows Home Server alerts to your smartphone and finally, WHS BDBB (Windows Home Server Backup Database Backup) which many have found essential in protecting their client backups.  As there has been so many great add-ins this year, we’re also throwing in FirePlay for Windows Home Server, the highly rated remote media streaming client, and finally Advanced Admin Console, which brings a host of additional controls to the Windows Home Server Console. Phew!

If you don’t see your favourite listed in our nominations, then you also have the opportunity to vote for your own choice – but remember, the product should have been released this year, or had a major update released to the public.

As now written in the great WGS tradition, your votes will be counted over the next few days and the award winners will be announced on New Year’s Eve. Good luck and congratulations to all nominees!