Windows Home Server Team Blog

I am pleased to see that WHS and hence Microsoft is getting good press. I think WHS is a great concept. Microsoft often gets bad press, some deservered and some definitely not deserved. So this is a nice change!

I regularly interact with home users since I teach Office. Unfortunately I also regularly hear tales of woa when people realize that HD's actaully do fail (usually the day before you had promised yourself for the hundreth time that you would do a back up!). Many small businesses and less sophisticated NPO's really aren't much better. In fact the advent of cheap/easy RAID has created a false sense of security for some since they think it means no data loss when of course it really means no or minimal down time. WHS's approach to storage redundancy removes the hassle and doesn't have the weakness of simple mirroring for example. Mention RAID to the average person and they will think that you are into a different kind of "bug".

Something that we must keep very firmly in mind is that the level of computer sophistication in the average household is still very low (if it wasn't the big box stores wouldn't be able to charge outragious rates for simple PC fixes and upgrades - I also teach a course on how to build your own PC). WHS must be able to be viewed as and behave entirely like an "appliance" if it is to have major penetration into the home and perhaps home/very small business. Routers have now found a regular spot in the home in part because they are "plug and play" (mind you wireless is still an issue). WHS must be the same.

To me WHS's first and foremost value is reliably solving the home user's backup issues. Everything beyond that is a nice bonus. In time the other features (streaming media and no doubt other add-ins that will come along) might begin to be appreciated by a wider audience but today the average person is not into sophisticted use of media in the home. It is definitely changing but still represents the minority.

Now all I have to do is get it to function fully for myself. Backups work like a charm but restore...well that's another matter entirely. Am I really concerned? No. I am sure the "undocumented features" will be resolved and we will have a very useful and successful product, one which I personally would be very happy to support and promote.

Cheers

Graham Jones, MVP