Asus TS Mini Home Server Press Release

For those of you who fancy a read, here is the press release for the Asus TS Mini Home Server:

ASUS Unveils TS Mini Server for Today’s Small Office/Home Office
— Compact, energy efficient and pre-installed with Windows® Home Server, the TS Mini serves the need to access and share content on-demand —
Fremont, California (November 18, 2009) – ASUS, a worldwide leader in personal computers, today introduces the TS mini small office/home office (SOHO) server. The TS mini targets modern home and small office users that frequently exchange data from multiple computers and require access from various locations. The TS mini secures documents, multimedia, and other digital content into a sleek repository. It further safeguards data on multiple computers across the home or office with automatic backups and cloud storage. TS mini allows centralized file access with local networks, attached storage devices and remotely over the internet. Equipped with an Intel® Atom™ processor, the TS mini delivers quiet, energy efficient, always-on access. Operating on the Microsoft® Windows™ Home Server Platform, it simplifies management of digital content. The TS Mini is available now for pre-order at Amazon.com and NewEgg.com starting at $349.99 USD.
“Consumer demand for rich content that can be accessed anytime, anywhere, on any device is fueling innovation in networking and storage of media and data in the home,” said Seth Bobroff, general manager, Data Center Group – Storage, Intel Corporation. “The Intel® Atom™ processor in the TS mini enables ASUS to deliver the ability to stream media, share files and protect data while remotely accessing it, all in a sleek and energy-efficient 2-bay design.”  
“We are pleased to welcome ASUS, one of the industry’s leading PC manufacturers, to the Windows Home Server family,” said Leslie McGuire, Microsoft Director of Windows Server Marketing. “Customers tell us they want an easy and inexpensive way to store, manage and protect their digital content. ASUS helps them achieve all of that with their TS Mini Server, which includes a robust option for adding data capacity through external Web storage.” 

Intel D510M0 Mount Olive Mini-ITX Main Board

D510M0 Main Board

The latest mini-itx main board from Intel is the D510M0 which is equipped with the Intel Atom Dual Core D510 processor (2x 1.66GHz and 2x 512K cache) and the Intel NM10 Express Chipset, providing more than enough power for a Windows Home Server home build.

As well as the 2x hyper threaded 1.66GHz CPUs (4x CPUs in Task manger) the north bridge controller is on the SAME silicon as the CPUs, improving overall performance.

D510M0 Specs

An early tester of the D510M0 board is Tranquil PC who had this to say:

(We) will be using this new board in numerous new PCs and Servers, including the new MiDASS series of Home Servers.  There is talk, that the board will also be made available on it’s own too.

Due to be shipped in early January 2010 by Tranquil PC the TDP is only 13W (that’s the CPU and the North Bridge) and would suggest that, with suitable air flow, the D510 can be passively cooled by the fitting of a heat sink, making a quiet Home Server solution.

More details are available from here.

HP StorageWorks X510 Reviews

Two top technology websites have reviews on the HP StorageWorks X510 2TB Server.

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The re-badged EX495 MediaSmart Server for the small business user, gets great reviews with SlashGear being "impressed" and neowin saying it "is a solid unit" which "should be on your list to check out".

SlashGear‘s review and neowin’s.

WHS to Have Little Butte

Australia’s APCMag.com is highlighting the new Home Server design by Intel which utilizes the Atom CPU.

The bespoke platform is specifically designed for the Windows Home Server platform and is being developed in conjunction with Gigabyte, and is known as the "Little Butte".

As well as Gigabit Ethernet and the single memory slot there is capacity for 4 x internal SATA hard drives as well as 2 x eSata ports and 4 x USB 2.0 for further expansion.

Little Butte 

A front panel connector for a visual control panel and/or status indicators is also provided as well as an embedded switch on the rear panel which boots the server into a WinPE environment for recovery from a system crash.

More details are available from APC Magazine Online.

Holiday Storage Devices Gift Guide

COMPUTERWORLD has a holiday gift idea article on storage devices.

The article looks at various devices including the Media Hub Home Entertainment Storage by Linksys, , Seagate’s DockStar and Acer’s Aspire easyStore H340 Home Server.

You can read it here.

Add-In: CloudBerry Backup for WHS 1.3.1

CloudBerry Backup for Windows Home Server has been updated.

CloudBerry Lab 1.3.1

Version 1.3.1 of the online backup solution for our Home Servers include the following new features:

  • Alerting notifications
  • GUI issues with high DPI fixed
  • Purging options work correctly
  • C# API – an ability to get backup plan statistics programmatically
  • Issue with Overview panel is fixed
  • Other issues

And the following is a list of features coming soon:

More info on CloudBerry Backup for Windows Home Server is available from here.

The Home Server Show Podcast Episode 64

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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.

Dell Inspiron Zino HD for WHS?

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.

Inspiron Zino HD

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.

Acer Aspire EasyStore Video Review

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.

Share WHS with Samba Easily

If you stream from your Windows Home Server shared folders to any media player via smb (such at the Popcorn Hour or Myka) you can only mount 1 share at a time. Meaning you will have to create a separate smb share for each shared folder and you will only be able to access one share at a time on your media player.

But MediaSmartServer.net has a post with a solution which allows all your WHS shared folders to appear under one smb share, which you can read here.