The Windows Home Server World Cup results for April are in and Norway remains on top, with New Zealand closing the gap. New Zealand is less than 100 units away from first place, assuming Norway stands still. Windows Home Server has now been sold in 47 different countries around the world. The top 8 countries are:
- Norway
- New Zealand
- United States
- Germany
- United Kingdom
- Denmark
- Australia
- Switzerland
The standings are computed by taking Windows Home Server sales divided by the number of households with a broadband connection in each country. Updated standings will be published next month.
The Windows Home Server team has solved a software bug that may affect files that are compressed using Advanced Attributes (NTFS compression). NTFS compression can be enabled on an individual file, folder or at the hard drive level and is sometimes enabled by users to save disk space on a home computer. More information on the bug and a link to download the fix at KB950190.
You can visit the Windows Home Server Community Forums if you want to ask questions or discuss this issue, by accessing this thread.
Sometimes we find stories about Windows Home Server on other people's blogs, sometimes we miss them. Clint Rutkas had the misfortune of having his laptop stolen ... you can read his blog post here. The summation, "Windows Home Server, best 400 dollars I ever spent."
t.
One of the important benefits of Windows Home Server is "image-based backup". Most consumers are probably not aware of this important distinction when it comes to backup. A disk image backup is basically a backup of the entire hard drive. Contrast that with "file-based backup" which is the backup of selective files on the hard drive.
Personal story: This past weekend my wife decided to download a few fonts from the web. For some inexplicable reason a few of the files, that were conveniently saved on the Windows desktop, would not delete after she tried them out in Microsoft Word. "Cannot delete file: It is being used by another person or program." I was called in to solve the problem. After a few searches on the web, I came to the realization that finding a solution could become a significant time investment. Instead, I pulled out the Windows Home Server Computer Restore CD. I left the computer to complete the system restoration and when I returned an hour later it was done. Everything was back to normal!
The time savings associated with Windows Home Server is an often overlooked advantage. Since the sun was shining this weekend in Seattle, those time savings were all the more valuable to me!
Steven
Does Donavon West sleep or has his home server automated a bunch of previously manual tasks so that he has time to write cool sidebar gadgets that interface with Windows Home Server?
His new one is called "ShareMaster for Home Server" and sits on the sidebar allowing quick access to WHS shared folders.
Go to http://www.homeserverhacks.com - Thanks Donavon!
t.
Donavon West of Home Server Hacks and LiveGadgets.net has created a nice Home Server blog headline ticker gadget to help you get the WHS news you can use. Pretty slick - it currently pulls from this blog, We Got Served, MS Windows Home Server and Home Server Hacks.
J
Doing my duty to point out the 'hot' deals on our OEM Windows Home Server products, here's one to take note of...
Given credit where it's due, the kind folks on Home Server Hacks have pointed to an interesting promotion by New Egg - the HP MediaSmart Server for $539 WITH a free router + free shipping AND a free extra 500 GB hard drive. Details here.
WHAT A DEAL! ;-)
- MFP
Interesting story here on CE Pro about Atomoo, which "may be the first residential IT managed services company to cater to home systems integrators." And they rely on Home Server.
Home systems integrators may do a good job of installing PCs and networks in their customers’ homes, but they really don’t want to maintain those systems.....Atomoo provides 24 x7 IT support for residential customers. At the customers’ premises is a Windows Home Server loaded with remote management and diagnostics software.
I was in Dallas last week for the SMB Summit, where 400+ solution provider partners were gearing up for the Windows Essential Server Solutions launching later this year and learning about Home Server, too. At lunch several attendees told me how they see Home Server as way to expand their consulting businesses into the high end home market.
J
As the 'new guy' on the Home Server team, I've been waiting a bit to find the right topic to jump into the blogging spotlight. When I ran across some really interesting power consumption data that Fujitsu-Siemens, one of our OEM partners in Europe had sent us, I just couldn't resist...
First, a quick intro: my role on the team is helping our OEM and ISV partners bring Windows Home Server products and services to market...So you'll likely be hearing a lot from me in the future in terms of really cool new additions to the Home Server ecosystem.
But back to my original point...With energy prices rising across the world, it's pretty clear that all of us will be paying a lot more attention to how we consume power in our houses - especially those devices that we tend to leave 'on' more than others - like PCs, A/V equipment, and of course our trusty Windows Home Servers. ;-) One of our partners, Fujitsu-Siemens (or FSC for short) opted to differentiate their Windows Home Server offering, the FSC Scaleo, by focusing on reducing power consumption thru innovative software and a great hardware platform. The results from their lab, below, speak for themselves. I've compared their results with an average PC in the home (and yes, I used the 'extreme' example here to prove a point). This translates into real, significant $$ folks!
Clearly, I'm not the only one that's recognized the 'green' angle of the FSC Home Server product. PC Pro, a UK based tech magazine just posted this review lauding its ability to conserve energy: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/190008/fujitsu-siemens-scaleo-home-server-1900.html
|
Power Consumption Comparison |
|
|
|
|
|
|
FSC Scaleo Windows Home Server* |
Average Home PC** |
|
Power usage/day |
433.06 Wh or 0.433 KwH |
5040 Wh or 5.04 KwH |
|
Power usage/year (kwH) |
158.264 |
1839.6 |
|
Cost / KwH in Germany (Euros) |
0.2 |
0.2 |
|
Cost / year (using today's exchange rate) |
31.65
or $50.35 US |
367.92 or $585.29 US |
|
|
That's less than 10% of avg. PC power cost! |
!!! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
* FSC Home Server using their power consumption software |
|
|
** Source: Overclockers.com - Avg. computer system draws 210 watts with no power saving settings enabled and left on for 24 hours. |
- MFP
The Consumer Electronics Association has issued a new study that shows (yet again) that Americans are not backing up their digital photos, music, documents or other types of files. Results of the study, "Amassing Digital Fortunes: A Digital Storage Study," show that nearly one in three consumers don't see the need to back up their files, while nearly a quarter (22%) say they aren't backing up files because it's too time-consuming. The average U.S. adult has 1,800 digital files, totaling 310 billion digital files nationwide. With an additional 1,060 being added per user in 2008, the total number is expected to hit just under 500 billion by the end of the year.
Enter WHS backup and restore. We continually get emails and posts on the Forum like this:
This weekend, my wife was working on a spreadsheet when she sorted the columns accidentally and messed everything up. She went too far and couldn't undo it. She was a bit upset.
I installed a HP Home Server several weeks ago and it's been backing up all 5 computers in the house. Thanks to the Home Server, I was able to pull a backup from the night before and restore it.
My wife was elated and the Glendale Quilt Guild Show was saved!
The complete study is available free to CEA members. Nonmembers may buy the study at eBrain.org.
j
I saw this come through the transom and thought I'd share...a guy in Kuwait custom building a big Home Server (11 drives?!) with an Alienware case. Maybe he'll help move Kuwait up in the Home Server World Cup standings.
J
Industry analyst firm In-Stat is promoting its new consumer storage research by Joyce Putscher, who we speak with regularly. See the press release for a quick summary of the report. The consumer storage market has more than doubled in the last two years - no great surprise there. Putscher notes that Home Server partners - primarily traditional PC vendors at this point - will drive customer education. As we all know, home servers are more than storage devices...but good to see that another industry pundit believes WHS will help drive customer awareness about how to survive their "digital data deluge."
J
Lots of buzz lately for the Fujitsu-Siemens SCALEO Home Server. The German PC Magazine just gave it a great review, for example. We Got Served provides a very in-depth review of the product, comparing it with HP's MediaSmart Server. Worth a read. Terry calls SCALEO a "strong contender" with "beauty that comes from within." (Great to see Terry is boosting his karma here in the Great Northwest, too.)
What is one sign that a consumer product is making its way into the public consciousness? How about coverage in Playboy magazine? Yep, the HP MediaSmart Server is part of a feature on media room solutions. Sorry, I'm not providing a link to that site :)
J
The March numbers are in for the Windows Home Server World Cup. Norway and New Zealand remain strong in the #1 and #2 spots. Germany moved up to take the 4th slot away from the UK. Japan is back in the top 16, edging out China for the 16th spot. Here are the current rankings of the top 16 seeds in the Windows Home Server World Cup competition.
- Norway
- New Zealand
- United States
- Germany
- United Kingdom
- Australia
- Switzerland
- Denmark
- Canada
- South Africa
- Netherlands
- Sweden
- Austria
- Belgium
- France
- Japan
The standings are computed by taking Windows Home Server sales divided by the number of households with a broadband connection in each country. Updated standings will be published next month.
Customers are given the option of anonymously sharing some data with Microsoft during the initial configuration of their home servers as one of the few questions ("The 7 Simple Steps") that are asked during setup.
The Customer Experience Improvement Program data is used to gather metrics about how customers are using the product and helps influence future product decisions. The home server software is instrumented to collect only a few data points and all of the data is anonymously reported to Microsoft. I thought I would share charts from 2 of those data points, so you can get an idea of how the early adopters of Windows Home Server are configuring their machines.
A big thanks to all of the customers that have agreed to share their configuration data to help the home server team understand how you are using the product. Real data from real customers is a lot better as a data collection methodology than any quantitative web-based survey.
t.