What is this “Windows Home Server” you may be wondering, well over the next few weeks we are going to be reviewing and showing off some of great features of WHS (Windows Home Server). Most of you will not have heard of Windows Home Server and be thinking this is a brand new OS, but actually it has been around since the end of 2007!
So let´s take a look at some of the cool features of Windows Home Server.
PC Backup & Restoration
This utility in my opinion is absolutely excellent. Once configured WHS will create a full backup of your computer over the network and then add to it over time to keep it up to date so you have a constant copy of your computer or computers on the server in case one of them fails. If failure occurs then using the included restore CD you can connect to the Home Server and completely rebuild the failed machine from scratch if need be with all of your personal files and settings intact. This for me is invaluable as I personally have multiple PC´s and Laptops at home and having a backup of everything done for me automatically is great.
Health Monitoring Of PC´s & Server
Windows Home Server includes health monitoring of the server and also all of the connected computers, it then relays the health state back to the computer via the connector icon which is situated next to the clock on the taskbar. If it is green then everything is fine, if it is yellow then there is a risk and if it is red then there is a serious problem, also blue indicates that the computer is being backed up to the server. If you do not want to be notified then you can turn off this option so it does not bother the rest of your family and you the “Home Admin” can check the status on the server instead.
Document & Media Sharing
While it's relatively simple to create a shared folder on any Windows system, and far easier and more secure to do so in Windows Vista, Windows Home Server builds on this in a number of ways. A server is an ideal place to store file archives of any kind, though this may be a foreign concept to many of you home users out there. I've been using a Windows Server-based server for this purpose for years, though I'm in the process of switching this over entirely to WHS now, as it is simpler and more automated for home use. In my case, I need about 3 TB of storage space, but your needs will likely be far less.
On a very basic level, WHS can and does act like any Windows-based machine with respect to file shares. It includes a number of pre-built shares, like Music, Photos, Public, Software, and Videos, and it creates a default share for each user you create. These shares, by default, have standard rights associated with them.
So while even a guest has read access to the Public folder, only a user who was explicitly given the correct credentials can access the private share with Full rights. The UI for configuring this is far simpler than what is available in any Windows desktop version making the whole process easy and efficient But WHS isn't just about simplicity: In addition to making it very easy to access and control access to whatever is available on the home server. WHS also includes a unique and innovative approach to storage.
Basically, any hard drive you connect to the server is added to the “pool” of available storage, and you don't need to deal with drive letters or other disk management stuff. Just plug in the drive, external or internal, and tell WHS, via its console that it is allowed to use that storage.
WHS will work with as much storage as you can give it, and it's basically only limited by the connections your server has.
Windows Home Server also is extremely innovative in the way it replicates your files. Instead of working with complicated server technologies like RAID, Home Server simply will duplicate any files that you tell it are important to one of more drives on the server, so if one of them fails you do not lose your important files or precious photos.