Windows Home Server: ready to install?

 

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Posted on 18 Jun 2007 at 14:36

A feature-complete version of Microsoft's Home Server (see our review of the first beta here) has been posted to its Connect testing site, keeping the software on track for a late summer or early autumn release. We give the updated product a thorough test to see if it's living up to its early promise.

Windows Home Server aims to provide not just network storage, but centralised backup for domestic networks of two or more PCs, as well as simplifying remote access. While it will be sold standalone (prices are as yet unavailable), it will also be found in products from the likes of LG and HP, integrated into headless NAS appliances speculated to cost rather less than £500.

While it doesn't do much that's entirely new, there are some clever touches, such as the pooling of separate hard disks into a RAID-like array, per-folder mirroring options and the ability to easily add or remove internal/external hard disks.

Full PC backups are also made at the hard disk cluster level, with each file (including program and system files) stored centrally only once, drastically decreasing the space requirements and making incremental backups impressively quick.

Many of the changes from beta 2 are cosmetic, improving on the already accessible interface and expanding some of the settings. But there are also notable improvements in the remote-access area: if you've got a UPnP 2 compliant router, for example, Home Server will attempt to automatically set up port forwarding, and guide you through setting up a (free) Windows Live domain so you can remotely access your server using a personalised URL.

After a punishing week of tests, we're happy to report that everything works as we'd expect it to. It's easy to get to grips with the new features, and it's surprisingly stable too.

But it's also clear that this first-generation product contains some frustrating limitations for the expert user: for a start, the remote-access interface itself doesn't allow you to upload multiple files at once, there's still no easy way of integrating Home Server with a Windows Media Center PC, and you can't stream music or video remotely. You'll also need a decent broadband connection (both upstream and downstream) to make it worthwhile, and it's now clear that wireless connections won't be supported at all.

There's still plenty here to like, and we're interested to see how system manufacturers and developers will use the extensible plug-in architecture to add new features - we've already seen a few "add-ins" that bring niceties such as Wake-on-LAN and digital photo galleries, but plenty more will need to come along to really bring the wow factor.

The beta program, previously limited to invite-only testers, has been opened to all-comers too: if you've got a modestly powerful spare PC to test it on, you can register and download it yourself here.

Author: Ross Burridge