Everyone's talking about Microsoft's soon-to-be-released Windows Home Server ("WHS"). It's a new operating system that's based on Windows Server 2003 (future editions will be based on the upcoming Longhorn Server). Microsoft's current plans are to offer it on an OEM-only basis. HP and others will start offering hardware packages later this year.
Bill Gates unveiled the WHS during his keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show. He envisions a server in every living room, so that Microsoft can "give you connected experiences 24-hours a day". It will monitor security patches/virus definitions/drive health/etc on all Windows PCs on your home network, and back up all of their data. It also offers Zune and XBox connectivity, so you can use it to store all of your music/photos/videos for easy access from any Microsoft-powered device. Wired calls it total convergence.
And of course, content stored on the WHS will be available over the Internet! The product preview mentions a "free customizable Windows Live website", and CNet reports that customers will get "personalized Internet addresses with no monthly fees". In other words, why sign up for a hosting account - to which you have to go through the trouble of uploading your data - when you can selectively web-enable whatever home-hosted content you wish?
The WHS' storage methodology is pretty nifty, BTW. Ars Technica reports that users won't see a C:\ drive - just a single, expandable storage pool. The capacity of any internal, external or USB drives on any computer can be added to the central store. WHS duplicates all data across two or more disks for redundancy. In addition to automated, incremental file backups, WHS takes scheduled snapshots of client systems, with which customers can perform full restores.
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