As part of his keynote address on Sunday at the annual Consumer Electronics Show, Gates showed off Windows Home Server (more info at Ars) - a consumer device to serve as a central storage place for digital photos, music and other media. The first products are due out later this year from HP and others. The goal is to get devices that can cost less than USD 500. In the first of a two-part interview, Microsoft's chairman talks about why the average person wants a server, why they won't need a degree in computer science to run it and what hurdles remain before consumers reach the true digital home.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-07-02
Anyone that has digital media or documents and wants to ensure they won't lose them due to a harddrive failure[...]
Except of course if the server hard drive fails. ;-)
I guess the ideal solution would be a solid state HD, but with the kind of capacity you need for this type of device it would cost over 1500$!!
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-08
Member since:2006-12-07
Member since:2005-07-11
There are a lot of NAS boxes already out there that do this simply by adding your own hard drive. Taking into account the cost of the MS OS and the beefy hardware needed to run it, finding people to fork over that extra cash is going to be a lot more difficult than MS would ever admit to.
Member since:2005-07-06
There are a lot of NAS boxes already out there that do this simply by adding your own hard drive. Taking into account the cost of the MS OS and the beefy hardware needed to run it, finding people to fork over that extra cash is going to be a lot more difficult than MS would ever admit to.
I don't consider a 1.8GHz Sempron w/ 512MB RAM beefy (what the HP unit contains -- it's unknown what the minimum specs will be, but I imagine it'll be similar to Windows Server 2003). $500 puts it in line with many NAS units, and this can handle multiple PC's and devices on your network without duplicating data that is the same accross devices.
Member since:2006-01-06
It's not the server itself I don't see the need for, its a special version of Windows for it.
An older (P-III) PC can be bought for ~$50 from eBay, a 400GB HDD for ~$100. Therefore you could easily set up a home server for ~$150.
Such a PC would likely be already licenced for Windows (even Win98 would work well enough) and a suitible Linux distro can be obtained for free.
I contend that the average person has no need or desire for a server, so those who want one will almost certianly have the expertise to set one up.
Why do we need a special version of Windows?
Member since:2005-07-06
It's not the server itself I don't see the need for, its a special version of Windows for it.
An older (P-III) PC can be bought for ~$50 from eBay, a 400GB HDD for ~$100. Therefore you could easily set up a home server for ~$150.
Such a PC would likely be already licenced for Windows (even Win98 would work well enough) and a suitible Linux distro can be obtained for free.
It depends ou what you think "easy" means. The goal for WHS is to allow people to get the benefits of a home server without having to be an admin. If you know how to cobble together a server and don't mind doing so, WHS isn't likely targeted at you.
I contend that the average person has no need or desire for a server, so those who want one will almost certianly have the expertise to set one up.
When the average person loses the data he deems important because he didn't keep regualr backups or know how to setup a RAID array, etc., he'll wish he had, and probably will look for a solution such as WHS.
Why do we need a special version of Windows?
Because it's a purpose-specific product and will be priced according to the functionality offered and the market. It also doesn't need to be in lock-step with general Windows releases.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2006-06-24
I have a question, dunno if you can answer it or not.
The autobackup is a nice feature, but doesn't that mean leaving all the machines on all the time?
Same with the remote desktop function. When the average user takes his family, on holiday, he doesn't want to leave the other machines in the house switched on, just so that they can remote desktop in.
Member since:
2005-07-06
Anyone that has digital media or documents and wants to ensure they won't lose them due to a harddrive failure, tampering, mistaken deletion, etc., would benefit from a home server. It's largely a set-it-and-forget-it appliance that can provide a central location for your data, guards against data loss, monitors the systems on your network for security/reliability issues, makes it faster and easier to restore your systems, and enables remote access to them.
There's video here:
http://on10.net/Blogs/jesse/windows-home-server-will-live-in-your-c...
http://microsoftatces.com/archive/2007/01/08/microsoft-home-server....