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You can push WHS past these constraints, but doing so means digging in deeper and losing all that easy-to-use wizard-based help.
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And what it wants is a nice, basic home-networking setup: a DSL, satellite, or cable modem a home-style firewall and Internet-sharing router that takes care of DNS and IP addressing and a bunch of little Windows PCs that may be scattered through the house but are all part of the same IP subnet. Microsoft has built the first version of WHS on a highly modified version of Windows Server 2003, meaning it wants what it wants and it's likely to get confused if it doesn't get it. If that's your plan, you'll probably be able to shave a few bucks off the price of the prepackaged WHS boxes, with careful decisions, but you might want to read about my installation hassles below before you leap at the savings.įirst lesson: Don't play with this in the office.
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According to Redmond, these folks will be selling the WHS software kit for about $180, but you'll need to provide your own hardware for installation. Your other option is to grab the software only, which Microsoft says it will make available via some online sellers who market primarily to OEMs and systems integrators. WHS does beat the Linksys in features overall-notably in backup/restore and ease of remote access-but the Linksys certainly offers enough in all those departments to make many folks want to save themselves the two Benjamins. That's a fairly significant price difference, considering the similarity of the Linksys and WHS features. If you're using 250GB drives, that can be as low as $75 a pop for a total of around $305 for a half-terabyte of Linksys storage.
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The HP MediaSmart server will run you $599 to start with half a terabyte installed, going up in price as it goes up in capacity-all the way to a rotund 6 terabytes! Comparatively, a standard living-room NAS box costs about $130 street plus the cost of a couple of hard drives. The most expensive way to buy WHS is to purchase it preinstalled on a lustrous, living-room-ready, feng shui–sensitive appliance such as the HP MediaSmart. Is all that enough to make you pay the cost premium that WHS will likely require? Dig a little deeper and find out.- Next: Getting Startedįirst, let's find out if there is a cost premium. Last, Home Server is just easy to use-notably easier than the average NAS.
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If a PC drops out of "healthy" mode, you can log on from the console and run updates or perform other fixes. WHS can also read the PC health stats of supported Windows operating systems so that you can keep an eye on all your home PCs from a single console.
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WHS will also allow users to take full remote control of their attached PCs, provided that this feature is enabled on the server-no third-party NAS box does that. But WHS extends that to include not only folder encryption but also user accounts on the server for security. A few NAS boxes, again including the NAS200, also allow external access to shared folders via the Internet. For example, boxes such as the Linksys NAS200 can run backups from the NAS rather than from each desktop but only Windows Home Server uses the new OS-level storage technology, integrates directly with Windows-based My Documents data folders, runs image-based backups, and has time-based reference recovery points (about which, more later). The Redmondians have, however, added a few proprietary features that separate Windows Home Server from the rest of the NAS crowd-a bit. True, WHS is all about file storage-just like a straight NAS box. On the other hand, Microsoft has added features to Windows Home Server that you simply won't find on third-party NAS appliances. But dig into the specs and you'll find that WHS is really more of a Redmond-grown version of network-attached storage (NAS), which is disappointing, since those types of products have been out for a while from other vendors. From the name Windows Home Server, you might think Microsoft has finally decided to package its network and server technology for the home market. Reading the specs didn't brighten my day, either. No welcome-home hug, no pat on the head, no personalized coffee mug-just DVDs in my teeth and a deadline. So it should have come as no surprise that on my first day back in the PC Magazine fold, my boss hurled the Home Server RTM DVDs at me and demanded a review. Microsoft has been trumpeting the arrival of Windows Home Server (WHS) since last December in fact, we ran a review of its Beta 2 incarnation in February Microsoft Windows Home Server Beta 2. Best Hosted Endpoint Protection and Security Software.