Windows Home Server Beta 2 is now open to the public.  See http://www.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver for more information and a link on the right side of the page to apply!

Its coming!  Windows Home Server is in the beta 2 testing stage.  Its not yet a public beta, but you can apply here:

 

 

Public forums are accessible to all at: http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer

 

What is Windows Home Server?  Its a Server 2003 based PC that will allow you to automate backup of all your Windows XP and Vista PC's, with little intervention. Once the server is set up and the client software installed, the backups happen at a time you schedule (default is between midnight and 6 AM).  And once the initial backup is performed, incremental backups (new/changed files only) get added during the scheduled run.

 

It uses a unique (to me anyway) backup strategy. Say you have two computers both running Windows Vista Ultimate.  The first machine is backed up. This is not done at the file level, but by the "cluster".  Windows Vista uses the NTFS file system, which defaults to a "cluster" size of 4 kilobytes.  A number of clusters is used to contain the actual file.  A file will always be stored starting at the beginning of a cluster.  Windows Home Server backs up the first PC by analyzing and storing each cluster in the server storage pool. Once that PC is backed up it moves to PC #2. On that PC each cluster is analyzed and compared with the clusters that have already been backed up from PC #1.  If a match is found (the cluster is identical) it is not copied to the server, but a record is made that PC #2 uses that cluster as well.  This might seem like majic, but it isn't.  Its just a different method of checking for identical files without having to go into file name, creation date, version and other information.  You can also customize the individual PC backup to exclude drives and folders that you don't want backed up.

 

It can also serve as a Media Server (not Media Center Server, sadly), so you can place music, photos and videos on the server and have them available publicly.  And it uses Windows Media Connect to serve your files to any Windows Media Connect device.  You can also create individual user accounts, who can have their own private folders which can be restricted to them, or you can allow other user accounts on the server access to them.  You can easily drag and drop individual files and folder to make them remotely accessible (see my other blog post on Remote Access).

 

And it will monitor the Security Center on your Windows XP and Windows Vista machines and warn you when one of them has a problem with the firewall, antivirus or anti-malware programs. 

 

Setup takes a while, with a number of reboots, but its pretty simple.  Short of installing and drivers that aren't included on the DVD, you only have to enter your Product Key and an Administrator password.  After that, you install the client software and that gives you access to the Windows Home Server Console.  Once the server installation is finished, you can disconnect the monitor, keyboard and mouse.  The entire thing can be run remotely.  You can use the Windows Home Server Console or you can use Remote Desktop to get in.

 

System Requirements are low. 1 Ghz CPU, 512 Meg of RAM, 100 Mbps hardwire Ethernet connection (clients can be wireless), and enough storage space hold the backups and shared files.   Adding another hard disk is easy.  Just install the drive, go to Server Storage, right click the new drive and select Add.

 

One note of caution.  Whatever drive(s) you install in the Windows Home Server machine, make certain that there is nothing on it/them you want to keep.  All drives in the WHS machine will be formatted.

 

See more on Window Home Server at: http://www.stopdigitalamnesia.com/