What is a Home Server? Well the answer is in the question its a server for the Home. The first true Home Server OS was the Windows Home Server (WHS) from Mircosoft which was released a year ago and the other currently being worked on is the Ubuntu Home Server (UHS) by the looks of the project page that will have the same features but Ubuntu way to WHS features. Apple is yet to release a Home Server of their OS X Leopard Server.
What can I do with a Home Server? There are a number of things you can do with a Home Server and for the point of this I will be refering to the WHS.
- Automatic Backup of computers on your Home network
- Share files over your network and the Internet
- Access your files which is on the Server from anywhere in the world
- Share your music collection via streaming software
- Run PHP web services such as Wordpress – however you need to do some messing about which nor computer people will not likely be able to do.
- Proteect files using a simpler verison of RAID (if you have more then one hard drive)
Why would I mess about with the server settings? There are a number of reasons to mess about with the settings of the WHS, one being the ablility to run PHP, MySQL on it so you dont neet a different machine to do that if you want or require an Intrenat site like a blog that runs of Wordpress. WHS as a Time Server, so you can have just one system from your network going out on the Internet for time and the rest just get the time off the server. To run an addin such as Lights out (at first I assumed this was just for the HP Mediasmart Server – because of the lights at the front of the system. However when I looked into the details it was for all WHS systems). However with the Lights out addin you have to disable a service in the server call SBCore that does not allow the server to automaticly shutdown, restart, standby or Hibernate.
Do I have to buy one of the premake (OEM like HP MediaSmart Server) server or can I make my own? Both options are open to you, you could depending on your like-ing of the premake servers or if you know how to install an OS onto a normal desktop you could buy the OEM pack which contents the install disks and of course the product key. With the pack you can install onto a custom made system, an old desktop that has the requirements stated on the back of the pack or a OEM server such as HP or Dell “real” servers.
What are the costs? The cost for the OEM pack is about £80/$130, and what ever the cost of the custom made or the “real” server you wish to use and if you are using an old desktop you are saving more money. The cost of the OEM systems such as the HP MediaSmart Server is about £460/$500 for the 1TB system.
The cost of the DNS? The Windows Custom Domain one is free and the HP ones cost after x amount of days, but you would have to look into the HP costs. With the Windows Custom Domain you get a sub-domain address such as http://mywhs.homeserver.com with if you wanted to have a top level domain (tld) you could forward it to the subdomain and just go to http://whateverthetldis.tld. However with the tld you could get unwanted spiders taking data shots of it.
What are Add-ins? Add-ins are software that makes the WHS better in some cases. There are many free add-ins out there and there are some paid ones out there that deals with Security such as Avast WHS AntiVirus and HP Total Protection that you can ask for a free trail or if you have a HP MediaSmart Server the update has it in the SoftwareAddins folder. The free ones are good as well such as Grid Junction taht allows you to see if the power goes off when you have a Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) connected to your server.
More Information? If you need more information you can visit a number of sites that are listed below:-
- MS Windows Home Server @ http://mswhs.com/ (This is not an offical Microsoft site, but a MVP site)
- We Got Served @ http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/
- MediaSmart Home @ http://www.mediasmarthome.com/
- Home Server Hacks @ http://www.homeserverhacks.com/
- Windows Home Server Addins @ http://whsaddins.com/
There are more sites out there but most WHS fan sites have links to other sites.
In the up coming weeks we will be adding reviews of addins and guides of how to do hacks that will provide better services for the costs of running the server.
Since Windows Live Services Wave 3 was released a number of weeks ago, Home Server Hacks owner created a Windows Live Group for WHS fans go to http://homeserver.groups.live.com you will need a Windows Live ID, at the time of posting there are 316 members.