Apparently today is the official launch day for Windows Home Server. For those of you that have to maintain 2 or more PCs on your home network, you really owe it to yourself to have a look at this new product. WHS is targeted at the "typical" home user and it really will simplify your file sharing, system backup, and disaster recovery scenarios (without any of the headaches associated with rolling your own via deploying a full blown Active Directory domain). I have been participating in this beta for almost a year now and I think WHS is definitely going to be a great product for families with multiple PCs (assuming they are 32-bit Windows XP and Vista PCs, that is).
You can now pre-order a pre-loaded HP MediaSmart Server from a variety of retail sites for less than $600 (i.e. Amazon, Best Buy, CompUSA, Circuit City, etc). My quick and dirty scan indicates that Amazon is offering the best price for the 500 GB base model and is throwing in free shipping. Most of these folks look to be shipping the servers sometime toward the end of the month. Best Buy has a pretty cool flash demo up on their site if you are interested in seeing more about the new HP home server.
And for those of you that are:
- not really a huge fan of HP hardware (like me)
- slightly more technically inclined (like me)
- in posession of a spare machine with a metric butt-load of unused disk space (like me)
- cheap (like me)
You can also order a free 120 day evaluation kit (well, almost free, the shipping and handling is $5.99 in the US) and install it on your own gear. You'll have to buy and activate a license if you decide to keep it, but for 6 bucks it's definitely worth a look (Newegg is currently selling the software for $179.99).
Who knows? It might just make a great holiday present for the alpha-geek in your family...