Coming Home to Windows Home Server, Part 17
Jun 1, 2009 12:34 PM,
By Eric B. Rux
What’s going on with Microsoft’s Windows Home Server in the news lately? This month’s column covers a few of the tidbits that I’ve been following. None of them are big enough to fill an entire article, so I’ll roll them up into one.
Acer announces a Home Server of its own
For the longest time, the only way to get your hands on a Windows Home Server was to either purchase the HP model , or “roll your own” with hardware that you purchase and put together yourself, and an OEM version of WHS. Now, Acer has thrown themselves into the mix with an Acer Aspire Home Server. I saw a preproduction unit at Microsoft a while back, and let me tell you, this is a solid unit. Just like the HP model, it has four hot-swappable SATA hard drive bays, USB 2.0, and e-SATA connections. It’s a little less expensive than the HP model, so if you’re in the market for a turn-key WHS system, check out the Acer.
Windows Home Server Client on a Mac?
The WHS Team Blog has a nice how to on getting the Windows Home Server Client to work on a Mac. Evidently, one of the WHS developers has a Mac at home (gasp!), and wanted to see if he could get the WHS Console to run on his machine. You can find the instructions over at the WHS Team Blog. This won’t backup the Mac machine, but it will allow you to access the WHS Console from your Mac. Pretty cool.
Windows Home Server on MSDN
If you are a developer, then you no doubt have a subscription to MSDN. MSDN stands for Microsoft Developer Network, and allows you to have for-development copies of all Microsoft software. It’s taken some time, but now WHS is available via this channel. If you have a subscription to MSDN, log on and download yourself a copy of Windows Home Server. Be sure to let me know if you develop something for Home Server, and I’ll let everyone know about it here.
WHS+
The good folks over at the We Got Served website have a new section on its website called “Home Server plus” that covers Home Server add-ins. I’ve covered a lot of add-ins over the life of this column, and found many of them at the We Got Served Add-Ins page. They’ve got quite a few listed there, so check them out. I see a couple of new one, and I’m downloading them now. [smile]
What are you doing with your Windows Home Server? Do you use one at home? At work? Perhaps like a lot of people, you have set one up for a micro-business to help them with backups and remote access. Drop me a line; I’d love to talk to you about it.
