Next-gen Home Server based around Windows 7

There are only a handful of PC companies selling Windows Home Server so far, but Microsoft announced several new hardware partners at last week's CES, plus some more software add-ins and some satisfied customers.

Even more excitingly, Todd Headrick, director of the Windows Home Server Team, told TechRadar that Microsoft is working on on a minor release of the OS "some time in 2009" and then a major new version, codenamed Vail, due "some time in 2010." We knew that Vail would be making an appearance at some point, but what we didn't know what that it will be "part of the Windows 7 family."

Launched two years ago at the same show and dogged by initial data problems and consumer confusion about what it does that you can't get with a cheaper NAS, Windows Home Server did get a little boost at this year's event.

The main problem is that people just don't know why they need it. But customers who've worked out what Home Server is are very happy with it, says Headrick. "We just finished a survey on customer satisfaction with Home Server and the results are off the chart. 70 per cent said their expectations were exceeded with the product and that's somewhat rare – usually people say their expectations have been met."

"Over 90 per cent say they would recommend it to people." The problem is getting people to consider Home Server in the first place.

More hardware on the way

Having more hardware might help; Acer and Shuttle both announced their first Home Server machines at CES while HP, VIA, Niveus, Tranquil and Fujitsu Siemens have updated models.

These range from the tiny barebones VIA ARTiGO to the Niveus Storage Server – Cargo Edition which has 16 hot-swappable SATA drive bays (populate them with 1.5TB drives and you could have 24TB of storage).

VIA will be shipping Home Server units with space for two or eight drives (although they'll come with one drive to start with) at the end of Q1. Tranquil has a new expansion chassis that looks just like its existing server but has an eSATA port instead of Ethernet so you can add another five drive bays.

Shuttle will have two and three-drive models, though initially only for the US market. HP's new MediaSmart Server adds an eSATA port and Time Machine backup for Macs (which will also be available as an update for existing models).

Low power chips

Several Home Server models use VIA's C-7 low-power processors, which are well suited to a server that's on all the time and not usually running programs that need a lot of performance. Now Intel is getting into this niche; the Acer Aspire EasyStore Home Server has the Atom 230 processor more often found in netbooks and up to four hot-swappable SATA drives. Tranquil also uses an Atom chip.

Both Acer and HP are include an add-in that will copy files from an external hard drive onto the Home Server and then delete the files and add the drive to the general storage pool.

The EasyStore also comes with the Twonky media streaming server add-in that HP and Fujitsu Simens have been including; this has been so popular that Twonky is planning to create a version it can sell to all Home Server users.