I recently installed the new Windows Home Server to help manage our computer backups and share video, pictures and movies across our network (diagram pre-Home Server).
Home Server has been a really cool (and inexpensive**) add-on to our home network. It provides us with:
- Daily backups of all home-connected computers
- Streams pictures and SOME video nicely to our XBOX 360 - Add WebGuide4 and IT ROCKS!!!
- Centralized storage of our data
- Remote connection to your PC (as long as its Vista Ultimate or older XP OS')
** HP is one of the first companies to sell Home Server machines to the public. However, you could take an older PC in your home and install an copy of Home Server with a purchased copy from companies such as this.
Backups
Our daily backups are seamless. Initially each computer took about 2 hours to do a full backup. After the initial backup image, they take about 10-15 min each night....and those times are over a Wireless Network...both Server and client. Yes! Our Windows Home Server is not even connected via a network wire, but rather a Wireless-N connection. I was worried about the server running wirelessly initially since its not a supported configuration...but i have had ZERO problems with in and its been running for a 1.5 months now. I still plan on having someone come in to run a buried wire to my router...but i gotta find the time.
Picture, Video, Music streaming
Out of the box, the experience for this could be MUCH better. Thankfully, Home Server is a developer-friendly environment and companies like ASCII EXPRESS have filled the void where MS couldn't in time for the release (or lack of will). Without add-ins you can have up to 10 registered users access your Home-Server and users have this kind of view to shared video, picture and music:
After installing the FREE add-in from a ASCII Express ( a guy who has now been hired by the Microsoft Windows Media Center Team), your video, picture and music experience is more like this:
It even lets you streaming music and video over the web:
And the Photo sharing experience is wonderful. Thumbnail views, Zooming and panning capabilities, and even picture details.
WebGuide4 just such a slick User experience. A MUST for any Home Server.
A list of other add-ins for WHS can be found here
Storage
Being able to store data centrally is great. But what is even cooler is you can grow your storage space as easily as plugging in another USB External Hard Drive! Here you can see i've added a 500GB USB Drive to my existing 150GB for storage:
You can also ask Home Server to "Duplicate" some of your important folders (such as family photo's or video's) so that in case of a major hard drive failure you are protected.
Remote Access to your Computers
Being able to access any of your home computers remotely is really cool...Unfortunately, it only works if you have specific versions of the operating system on your computer for Home Server to connect too. Most home computers today will come with Windows Vista Home Premium....and Home Server does not consider this an acceptable computer to provide remote access too. You have to be running Vista Ultimate for Remote to work (or older XP editions which is odd). I think the Home Server team should talk to the Vista team and unlock this feature for Home Server access. How many times did i get a call from home asking for remote help? Now i have to upgrade of our Home PC's to Ultimate just to get this?! Please fix this MS on your next release!!!
Things that could be better
Clear Direction on the Photo/Video story from Microsoft
The Media Center team needs to talk to the Home Server team (Media Sharing) which needs to talk to the Zune team which needs to talk to the Windows Live Team (Live Photo) which needs to talk to the XBOX 360 Team (MCE and/or Blade Video/Photo's). What's going on?! We need a common approach on how to store video and pictures and share them with our friends and devices. For example, Media Center has this neat way exposing a folder that contains both Video and Pictures. If you are in "Pictures", you have a cool "Related Video" link that allows you to show video's found in that same folder (ie related to these pictures). This approach is also how Windows Live Photo deals with the import of pictures and video from a camera that does both (like our Casio EX-880...which by the way does AWESOME HD Video). This is great! So your approach would be to move all video and photo's into the same directory...This is where is dies...cause if you do, you can't share it properly with Home Server...since home server requires you to have your video and photo's separate (ala Media Player). So why does this matter? Well, if you don't separate them, then you can't access the pics and video from your Home Server to your XBOX 360...or other media extender devices.
Synchronization across computers for family and friends
Microsoft bought a company many moons ago called FolderShare. MS quickly logo'ed it as a "Live Service" but has done nothing with it since. An alternative is MS Sync Toy, but is no where near as powerful, flexible, and more importantly, stable. I'd love to see FolderShare as part of the Home Server service
Centralized Recorded TV
There has been some work around this in the dev community, but no clear winner, but Home Server should be where ALL recorded video is stored and then streamed from. HP's Home Server implementation did something cool which is the addition of a streaming service to stream video (like WebGuide). I have not seen this in action, but I'm not sure if it allows for the recording of content direct to Home Server for streaming.
Home Organization
HP added a neat feature on their TouchSmart PC that parents and kids share a calendar, notes, tasks, etc. with each other. This should be a service of the Home Server accessible via the Home Server desktop panel.
