The just-released Windows Home Server (WHS) from Microsoft Corp. is a surprisingly powerful networking tool that offers some of the sophisticated networking capabilities you would expect from big-boy servers, but aims them at the home "enthusiast" and power user markets.
In fact, some of WHS's capabilities are powerful enough that it's useful for the home office, not just home enthusiasts. In particular, its backup, file-sharing and remote access capabilities are ideal for users who run an office from their home, and possibly even for a small office of a half-dozen or fewer PCs. This should be no surprise: The software is based on the code of Microsoft Windows Server 2003
.The target for this software is aimed squarely at the home, though, and it does a very good job of doing most of the things that home users need, notably sharing media and other files, and no-fuss automated backup. It's designed for a world in which many households have multiple PCs attached via a home router to share broadband access.
WHS will primarily be sold as a plug-and-play, self-contained box that includes all hardware and software. You plug it in, turn it on and after some basic configuration, you're ready to go. Prices vary according to the capabilities of the hardware, size of hard drives and so on.
This review looks at the server software installed on a test machine with a 1.8-GHz Pentium 4 processor, 1GB of RAM, DVD drive, Ethernet connection and a 75GB hard drive. The minimum requirements for WHS are a 1-GHz Pentium 3, 512MB of RAM, a 70GB hard drive, DVD drive and Ethernet connection. On my test machine, the software ran flawlessly with no slowdowns or performance degradation.
In fact, some of WHS's capabilities are powerful enough that it's useful for the home office, not just home enthusiasts. In particular, its backup, file-sharing and remote access capabilities are ideal for users who run an office from their home, and possibly even for a small office of a half-dozen or fewer PCs. This should be no surprise: The software is based on the code of Microsoft Windows Server 2003
.The target for this software is aimed squarely at the home, though, and it does a very good job of doing most of the things that home users need, notably sharing media and other files, and no-fuss automated backup. It's designed for a world in which many households have multiple PCs attached via a home router to share broadband access.
WHS will primarily be sold as a plug-and-play, self-contained box that includes all hardware and software. You plug it in, turn it on and after some basic configuration, you're ready to go. Prices vary according to the capabilities of the hardware, size of hard drives and so on.
This review looks at the server software installed on a test machine with a 1.8-GHz Pentium 4 processor, 1GB of RAM, DVD drive, Ethernet connection and a 75GB hard drive. The minimum requirements for WHS are a 1-GHz Pentium 3, 512MB of RAM, a 70GB hard drive, DVD drive and Ethernet connection. On my test machine, the software ran flawlessly with no slowdowns or performance degradation.
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