Chris Szurgot's Blog

I got into the Beta for Windows Home Server, and I've been running it since Saturday. I have to say I'm pretty impressed.

Since it's a software only beta, I repurposed a spare computer I had in the house, grabbed an extra harddrive to bring it up to 200 GB, burned the DVD, and let it spin. Install is a fairly painless process, answer a few questions at the beginning, let it go for a while, change the admin password, and pull the KVM (simulate headless experience)

It makes backing up a painless process, even tolerating network failures. I haven't tried a restore yet, but I will get a chance to since my wife's computer failed and she just took it in for servicing. (Right after the backup finished in fact) Fortunately, there was nothing critical on it in case the restore fails.

Remote access works well as far as sharing files, making it pleasantly easy to get some files from work to home and vice-versa. I can't get remote desktop to work, but I'm trying to determine if that's a network problem.

Like any beta, I'm seeing problems, but I'm reporting them and I'm sure they'll get fixed as appropriate.

They've done some wonderful work on this product, and when it's done, it will make a nice package for a connected household to manage data, connectivity, sharing and backups. With the right price point, this will be a real winner.

(I realize that most if not all of this could be done with other tools, and a linux box, but I've gone that route, and this is pleasantly easy to setup and maintain)