Is Windows Home Server Doomed?

[Tim Williamson]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/2008/03/19/is-windows-home-server-doomed/' target='_blank'>http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/2008/03...-server-doomed/</a><br /><br /></div><em>&quot;Gizmodo asked the question after Iomega announced that it was no longer going to pursue its plan of releasing a Windows Home Server product like HP&rsquo;s MediaSmart Server (MSRP $749). Do you buy the explanation from Iomega that such a device is &ldquo;prohibitively unprofitable&rdquo; due to its cost being comparable to buying a new PC? My 2-cents: Price might be part of the reason (though other consumer-based NAS servers run about the same price for comparable amounts of storage), but I think the lack of consumer confidence in regards to stability and reports of file corruption has put a black-eye on the platform from the get-go. I don&rsquo;t think WHS will get much traction in the general consumer market until OEMs get close to Apple Time Capsule&rsquo;s price point of $299 for 500GB ($499 for 1TB) of storage and have all the bugs worked out.&quot;</em><br /><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/500/dht/auto/1206473245.usr209.jpg" alt="" /><br />With Iomega bailing out of their own Windows Home Server (WHS) offering, and with HP's WHS costing $749, along with the recent reports of stability and <a target="_blank" href="http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver/archive/2008/03/10/an-update-on-kb-946676.aspx">file corruption issues</a> (problems that even our own Jason Dunn <a target="_blank" href="http://www.digitalhomethoughts.com/news/show/32469/windows-home-server-data-corruption-bug.html">reported recently</a>), Alexander Grundner from eHomeUpgrade asks the question, &quot;<em>Is Windows Home Server Doomed?</em>&quot;<br /><br />It's essential that Microsoft fixes the stability and file corruption issues, but I like Alexander's idea to have a &quot;lite&quot; and &quot;premium&quot; version of WHS (although, I might call them &quot;Windows Home Backup&quot; and &quot;Windows Home Media&quot; respectively). Everyone should agree that it's extremely important to backup all important digital files (yet this always seems to be overlooked until it's too late), so if Microsoft could offer a version of WHS that makes it easy for non-techies to setup backups (and is down to the right price-point) I think it might be the jump-start that Microsoft is looking for in the WHS market!<br /><br />Is anyone currently using a Windows home Server? If not, what's keeping you from making the purchase?

[TopDog]

I have an old desktop that I've filled up with disks, and installed a GNU/Linux OS, with LAMP, SMB, FTP and VNC on. It cost me about nothing, just a couple of evenings configuring and tuning.

It's now been running for a few years with no maintenance except the occasional security update.

I don't see what more Windows Home Server can give give me except making me loose data...

[Eriq Cook]

...Is anyone currently using a Windows home Server? If not, what's keeping you from making the purchase?

Two things:

Data loss -- The next home file server I invest in *will* have RAID. The last thing I need is for my personal financial data & 4000+ media audio/video files to start dissapearing at random just because of the friggin RAID bug in WHS.
I wish WHS had media center (extender) built in so I can play them from my Xbox 360. I know I can share media files on the WHS, but I want the FULL media center experience from my Xbox 360 (using the traditional media center interface). This only comes with Vista Home/Ultimate or XP Media CE.It would be really nice if WHS came with full media center, so I can use the same media center software interface that's available on the client OS's. If there were resolutions/feature-adds for those two things, I would have bought it yesterday.

Microsoft seems to be losing its way compared to 10 years ago. Nowadays Ttey just seem to throw "test" products like WHS (and Vista) into the market and hope for the best now. I'm losing respect for MS.

[makicr]

I am planning on building a WHS box, but the data corruption bug is stopping me. Until that is fixed (and verified), there is no way that I am going to trust my data to the OS.

[Tim Williamson]

The reason I wouldn't buy a WHS at this point is mainly the price point and I honestly don't the functionality that it has.

The two main functions I see in the WHS is for backups and digital media sharing, and it's easy enough for me to setup my own backups and digital media sharing from my main PC.

I would like to setup RAID someday, but I'm pretty confident in my 2 backup methods (external HD and online storage). As for digital media sharing, I just have my media folders shared on the network, and have TVersity setup to share media with my Xbox 360 in the living room (I use TVersity because it supports file formats that the Xbox doesn't).

At the point where I have a family with multiple PC's setup, then I might make the jump to WHS since it would automate and centralize backups on the network, but at this point it's not worth it for me.

I wish WHS had media center (extender) built in so I can play them from my Xbox 360. I know I can share media files on the WHS, but I want the FULL media center experience from my Xbox 360 (using the traditional media center interface). This only comes with Vista Home/Ultimate or XP Media CE.

I really like this idea, especially if the server had a TV tuner card built-in, it would really make it the central media hub for the house.

[Phillip Dyson]

In addition to backups I'm looking for something that will allow me to easily manage user permissions and access. Who can access or see what folders. Or who can add or delete.

Perhaps I should be looking for something like this.
http://www.jkontherun.com/2008/03/hp-intros-500-g.html

[dcurtis987]

Tim, you're absolutely right! If the HP home server had a way to hook up TV tuners and had a built in Media Center it would be the central media hub of the home. I’ve felt that HP missed the boat on this, so far but if enough people suggest it maybe they will look at making the WHS more robust and allow it to be used for so much more than storage and back ups. I must say that the remote access to my home desktops is a nice feature but falls short of what the home server could… and will be some day. I have the HP EX470 with 3.5 terabytes of storage on it. Once they get software that allows a person to pause a movie in the family room and start from that same location in the bedroom (and do it automatically) the home server will become more of a “smart home” heart. Like anything else this will become more popular after people start to “play” with it and use it for more than Microsoft envisioned.

[Jason Dunn]

Tim, you're absolutely right! If the HP home server had a way to hook up TV tuners and had a built in Media Center it would be the central media hub of the home. I’ve felt that HP missed the boat on this...

I agree, but I think it's important to remember that WHS is a v1 product - meaning they got the core functionality down of backup/restore/storage, and they'll add to that. No product has every feature right out of the gate. :)

[Eriq Cook]

...I’ve felt that HP missed the boat on this, so far but if enough people suggest it maybe they will look at making the WHS more robust and allow it to be used for so much more than storage and back ups...

In addition HP doesn't have much say in what features WHS has. It's a Microsoft product so we should be saying MS missed the boat instead of HP.

[wilkinsjme]

I think WHS is a great off the shelf solution and am interested to see how the product evolves in the future. I've considered building one as well as I think the end user interface makes it easy for everyone in the family to easily share/backup/restore files, etc without needing to rely on me. Obviously data loss/corruption on something that is supposed to back up my data isn't encouraging.

That said, I think it will have trouble succeeding as long as joe and jane computer user think that backing things up is just copying things to an external usb drive. Which can be had for ~$100. I think this is who WHS is mainly targeted towards, typical households with multiple computers with basic to novice users. Not the person who can take a computer and put linux on it for a server.

Iomega may as well let HP and any others sweat it out for a while and see if the product starts getting some traction, then jump into the game.