Backup and Music Streaming with Windows Home Server

I am pleased to report that over the recent holidays I got a Windows Home Server and was able to get it up and running with amazing ease. I got the HP MediaSmart EX475, which comes with 1 TB (that's 1,000 GB) of storage space. Here is info on it from HP's site, and then also from Amazon. I ordered straight from HP, and it came quickly.

I've only just begun to make use of this machine, but so far I'm quite happy with it. The obvious thing to use it for immediately is automatic backup of all computers in your home. Between midnight and 6 am the WHS wakes up each computer on my network and backs them up. The first backup is heavy of course, but then after that it uses smart technology to only backup the files that are changed or new. You can then rollback individual files or entire hard drives to any date should something go wrong -- and of course, things inevitably go wrong. Since I'm as lazy as the next guy when it comes to backing up my files, this is a great solution. I no longer need to worry about it!

The other thing I've begun using my WHS for is streaming music to our primary television in the living room. Now, there are many ways one can do this -- with media center PCs, or XBox, or whatever. And I've had a Tivo machine for a while, and so could have been doing this all along. But I found the approach used by Tivo Desktop to be cumbersome, so I never bothered using it much. But with WHS, and with the handy Tivo Publisher Add-in For Windows Home Server, I can now listen to any MP3s that I have stored on WHS via iTunes. Very cool, because I didn't need to mess with Tivo Desktop, convert files in any way, etc. Oh, and ditto for photos and videos... for what that's worth... though I've not yet gotten my photos organized and stored on the WHS machine, and I doubt I'll be doing much perusing of photos on my TV anyway.

You can learn more about WHS by visiting the Microsoft WHS homepage.

And see also my original posting about WHS over a year ago. Unlike many technologies, this one is living up the hype and my own expectations for it.

There are many other things I hope to use my WHS for, as time permits me to explore the available add-ons and try out the various use scenarios (like remote access). So watch this blog for more updates on this...