Who Will Buy Windows Home Server?
Written by William on March 16, 2007 at 11:34 PM16 Mar
A few weeks ago I debated with a friend of mine about what kind of consumer would purchase the upcoming Windows Home Server, which can be thought of as a file server for non-technical people. I’m am fairly certain that there is a market for people who own multiple PCs and recognize the need for a central location for their files and automated backup routines, but do not have the technical know-how to set up their own file server.
This friend argued that any knucklehead could follow a few simple instructions to get an old PC up and running as a file server using any flavor of Linux. Tonight, I have learned that this fairly straightforward task is beyond my skill.
I’ve got an old Dell Dimension (Pentium 3 550) that has been running Ubuntu for several months now. I was pointed to this tutorial which demonstrates how to turn an Ubuntu machine into a simple file server that can be read by a Windows PC. Imagine my surprise when I could not get this thing running; all of the other users who posted on that Digg page mentioned how easy it was and even that there were better soultions out there.
Now that I have wasted two hours trying to get this working, I have realized the genius of Windows Home Server. I buy a headless PC, drop a CD into my Windows XP PC, and run the install program. That’s it. No installing Samba or an SSH client. Not a single command line. No *NIX snob looking down his nose wondering why I’m too dumb to figure out how to get this running.
(Well, that’s the idea. We’ll see if it is really that simple).
The most frustrating part of this is that I work with this stuff every day. I’m no stranger to Linux, and I am quite comfortable on the command line. There’s just something about getting these machines to talk to each other that mystifies me. I suppose when HP rolls out their MediaSmart Server I’ll be first on line to pick one up.
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3 Responses for "Who Will Buy Windows Home Server?"
Don’t get disheartened — people have been claiming for a decade now, that Linux is suitable for non-geeks.
In fact, if you look at the intro to O’Reilly’s “Learning Emacs”, it talks about which chapters are suggested reading for non-techs. Like they picture a receptionist writing memos and faxes in emacs!
I used Linux from 2000-2003 and couldn’t print once. I mentioned this on Slashdot and got reamed for being ignorant about how hard it is for the Linux developers to get device driver info from the manufacturers and other (legitimate) excuses that make zero difference to end users.
WHS isn’t just a just fileserver, you could probably duplicate that in Linux if you really wanted to. What whould be harder to duplciate is the backup capability built into WHS. It backs up all the PCs on your network (that you’ve installed the WHS client on) and does so in way that it doesn’t keep more than one copy of identical files–even if they’re from different PC’s; e.g. all the windows system files. It also allows for remote control of any of your PC’s (or the WHS) from anywhere you can get an Internet connection. Finally, the real killer is the disk extender technology that allows the user to add disks (internal or external) that act like RAID mirror, but without any of the hassle! Once you’ve added the disk to your WHS, it takes care of everything else.
I use Linux on the desktop (but can’t convert the rest of the family) and tend to avoid Microsoft products, but WHS is a killer product that may convert me back to Windows!
Joe: within an hour of posting this entry, I found my problem. A stray line in a config file that was preventing my Windows PC from connecting to the Linux PC, even though it could “see” it. I’m not sure why some members of the Linux community believe that it is ready for the general public. The Ubuntus of the Linux world have helped a great deal, but I can’t imagine any non-techie using Linux as their main PC without some sort of techie friend or family member ready to troubleshoot the issues that they will run into.
NCharles: I got into a long argument with someone else about the merits of WHS, and I cited the features you are talking about. Specifically, I discussed the disk extender, only to have it shut down with “I would rather have a hardware RAID.” Believe me, I see the advantage of WHS and I will have one of those boxes when it is available.
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