Hands on: Working with Windows Home Server

Lots about Windows Home Server (WHS), starting with the news that HP has lent me one of its Media Smart boxes. Designed to run the WHS software, this little device makes getting started with a Microsoft home server a lot easier.

It also takes up much less room compared with the ageing desktop machine I previously pressed into service (as reported in the create your own Windows Home Server column), with a tiny chassis and no local monitor, keyboard or mouse to worry about.

On the downside it’s not cheap. The single-disk ex470 model I’ve got has a capacity of just 500GB yet sells for a penny under £400, for which you could buy a much faster desktop with lots more storage space.

All Media Smart servers have just 512MB of Ram and a cheap and cheerful AMD single-core Sempron 3400+ processor, but that’s really all you need. In many other respects it’s a nice unit, especially when it comes to storage, with four hot-swap drive bays behind its protective front door.

The drive bays come ready-fitted with trays and can take any Sata (serial ATA) disks, so you could potentially save money by obtaining extra disks separately rather than going for one of the bigger capacity models. Additional disks are a good idea when it comes to taking advantage of folder duplication and the other Drive Extender options I outlined last month.

You can also plug external drives into the Media Smart server, using either USB or a much faster eSata interface. There are four USB ports - one at the front and the remaining three round the back, together with a single eSata connector and Gigabit Ethernet port.

The WHS software comes ready-installed, so to get started you just plug the HP server into the Lan then run a custom startup wizard from a network PC. This will install the WHS Connector, then connect you to the server where a console assistant will guide you through the basic steps needed to configure it.