Hardware
HP Kills Windows Home Servers, Time to Put a Fork in WHS….
HP’s out of the Windows Home Server market once it sells out of its current stock of MediaSmart servers. It seems like just yesterday that Microsoft and HP were trying to explain why everyone needed a server at home. I own a pair of HP MediaSmart servers, but will be putting them out to pasture as it’s clear that HP and Microsoft will not be supporting them over the long term.
At CES a couple of years ago, we were bombarded by Microsoft and HP marketing promos, oddly aimed at explaining to children why servers were a necessary appliance in every household. While I enjoyed my MediaSmart servers, they remained relatively difficult for many users too set up and maintain.
I haven’t had a chance to setup my MediaSmart servers in my new home office since they’re still boxed up from my recent move, but this announcement marks an end to my MediaSmart adventure. I’ll be exploring other backup and storage alternatives for a multi-OS household with about a bunch of machines on the network.
Acer and Tranquil PC still plan on selling WHS machines, but those days are likely numbered as Microsoft will likely close the books on this part of its business.
via We Got Served
Tatej
12/01/2010 at 11:35 pm
This is to bad. I have one of original EX-470s it was easy to set up and has been dead nuts reliable.
GoodThings2Life
12/02/2010 at 12:05 am
It’s one of those great ideas that’s ahead of its time and plagued by incompetent implementation on the part of Microsoft and OEMs, I’m afraid.
How many families DON’T have huge collections of media they want to share and show off as well as backup and protect?
lsbeller
12/02/2010 at 3:13 am
I look forward to your multi-OS solution you research. Oddly enough, I was at Frys today looking into one of these servers.
Steve
Henrique Saraiva
12/02/2010 at 11:34 am
Looking to re-sell those for cheap (seeing as you don’t use them anyways)? I wouldn’t mind getting a home server for meself!
Xavier Lanier
12/02/2010 at 6:46 pm
I’m paranoid about data and don’t have time to scrub all the drives- would take a lot of time considering I don’t have a drive enclosure or desktop tower handy.
Dan
12/02/2010 at 8:49 pm
Lots of easy ways to get that done. DBAN is probably the quickest and easiest but I’ll include the others as well: https://www.dban.org/ https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/eraser_portable https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897443.aspx https://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml
If you’re thinking these aren’t enough educate yourself to overcome your paranoia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_remanence
Then can you sell them at reduced rates? :)
Gordon
12/02/2010 at 8:06 pm
what a What a pty
Gordon
12/02/2010 at 8:08 pm
What a pity! I’ve got over 6 TB on my current home built one. MS also is killing off drive extender, which was the reason that I got WHS. It “just” works. Was looking forward to the new version b/c it will support Apple backup directly. BTW – your comment system doesn’t work well on IE9.