Home sweet Home server: A Super NAS from Microsoft and HP

HOW HOMEY can a home server be? Plenty, judging from the HP MediaSmart Server, an upcoming network-attached-storage (NAS) device powered by the new Windows Home Server OS. This consumer-focused model is designed to effortlessly back up a houseful of PCs, while making sharing files at home and abroad
brain-dead simple.

 HP and Microsoft have implemented several new features since the prototype was unveiled at CES earlier this year. For starters, new  models can store a maximum of 8 terabytes (TB) of data by populating the four internal hard drive bays and connecting external drives to the four USB ports. And the MediaSmart Servers aim to prove their living-room worthiness by emitting no more than 30 decibels of sound.

Microsoft says it will offer free domain names so that server content can be accessed remotely. Also, it has added an auto-config feature that it claims will automatically set firewall settings and open the necessary ports on a router.
HP has developed software overlays for sharing photos easily across a network and over the Web, as well as an iTunes server that aggregates music libraries while preserving individual playlists. The company is also providing
a built-in function that can automatically transfer stored TV content from Media Center PCs to the server.

Microsoft claims that the Windows Home Server OS can run on very modest hardware, although HP’s version is powered by a 1.8GHz AMD Sempron processor with 512MB of RAM. At press time, HP wouldn’t discuss
pricing on its server, except that it will cost less than $1,000. For its part, Microsoft expects to see some stripped-down devices selling for as little as $300. Watch for them in September.

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