MS Windows Home Server

Episode 64 of The Home Server Show podcast is up with the latest news and chat about antivirus protection on Windows Home Server, a home build in a 20 bay Norco case and lots more.

Listen in here.

The Dell Inspiron Zino HD is a small 8" by 8" desktop computer with 4 external USB 2.0 ports and 2 eSATA connectors. Comprising an Athlon Dual-Core processor and up to 8GB of RAM it is a contender for a home build Home Server, although it only has space for one internal SATA II hard disk.

With 2GB of RAM with a 1TB hard drive the unit works out as $379, although prices start at $229.

More details on the Dell Inspiron Zino HD are available from here, CruchGear also has an article on the 5 best uses for the $229 Dell Zino HD.

The ComputerTV video network takes a look at the Acer Aspire EasyStore Home Server.

In this 6 minute video, the EasyStore is taken a good look at, and is worth a look if you are thinking of purchasing one.

Website "Major Arcana" is about the rantings of 2 anime tech geeks who this week take a look at Windows Home Server and the Acer Aspire Easy­s­tore H340.

The guys give Home Server a solid 9 out of 10 and point out the products good points as well as its bad ones too, which you can read about here.

On Tuesday (10th Nov 09) Windows Home Server users were receiving the following error in their Home Network Health tab within the Console:

Windows Home Server was unable to update Windows Live Custom Domains with your current IP address. Your web site may not be available on the Internet.

This was due to a problem with the Windows Live Custom Domain service, a spokesperson for Microsoft had this to say:

Today the Live DNS service had a hiccup that prevented updates for records on the .homeserver.com domain name.  Thus if your WAN IP address changed on your router, the home server was unable to update this record, and remote access was not available.  This may have been accompanied with an alert from the home server.  If your WAN address did not change during the last 24 hours, remote access was unaffected.

The issue is now resolved and the Live DNS service is now 100% functional again.

With Windows Home Server being used more in the SOHO space, journalist Mary-Jo Foley asks:

So which should a small business user choose: Foundation or WHS?

Although Foundation Server does allow up to 15 users, it is not a “media” server as Windows Home Server is. So I know what I shall be choosing!

You can read Mary-Jo’s report here.

Microsoft employee Raymond Chen gives his experiences of Windows Home Server. From going from a "wait until it breaks, and then panic" model to an Acer Aspire EasyStore H340, Raymond now randomly selects a file from a backup just to make sure the backups are working – Which of course they are.