Windows Home Server coming August 27th?

C'mon, don't act surprised -- it's not like you didn't know Windows Home Server was on the home stretch. Nevertheless, if a date prominently listed on Microsoft's own Support Lifecycle website is to be believed, WHS will be "generally available" on August 27, 2007, and it also lists the mainstream support retirement date as October 9, 2012. Of course, we wouldn't place our bets on pre-fabricated boxes to start shipping with the software on the 27th, but if you hunt hard enough, you're likely to find it in one channel or another. Circle the date folks, yet another new flavor of Windows is nearly here.

[Via I Started Something]

[Trace The Hedgehog @ Aug 18th 2007 12:47PM]

I dont really have a need for this. But if I find it, I'll give it a try, looks interesting.

[Etrigan @ Aug 18th 2007 12:59PM]

Not to be a picky SOB, wouldn't the retirement date actually be October 9th, not September 10th?

[jakem @ Aug 18th 2007 1:29PM]

The dates are clearly in dd/mm/yyyy format unless you know of a 27th month that the rest of us aren't familiar with.

[MatthewJ @ Aug 18th 2007 2:09PM]

which means that it IS October 9th, unless you know a month between August and September that the rest of us aren't familiar with...

[Iced_Eagle @ Aug 18th 2007 2:11PM]

jakem: Take another look at what you wrote, and then look at the image again :)

09/10/2012

DD/MM/YYYY

So it IS Oct 9th like he said.

[Etrigan @ Aug 18th 2007 2:52PM]

It's my fault for posting that in the form of a question. More of a statement. As far as you being a fool.....you said it.

[pscs @ Aug 18th 2007 4:31PM]

i dunno if i really need this. what's the difference between this and normal windows vista if it's for home use?

[siriusfox @ Aug 19th 2007 5:02PM]

Money.

The things you'll get here that you couldn't get otherwise through just windows with no extra hardware/software. Backup, Simple Webserver of some sort, and file storage.

Fact is, everything except web sharing can be done with most forms of NAS devices. In our household we run a ReadyNAS NV+ for backup of all of our computers, and a single Linux box for hosting what we want on the web. Now mind you we're running Macintosh machines, but everything we do with it could be done from a Windows Machine.

If you want a backup solution, buy a RAID NAS device from someone and buy some backup software. If you want a backup solution with some extra features, consider this product.

[MarcosV @ Aug 18th 2007 4:43PM]

Having beta tested this product, I'm really excited about it. It'll be the perfect backup server to inflict on my friends and family who aren't computer geeks, but, *NEED* some sort of automatic backup setup with some limited file sharing --- and who use nothing but Windows OS (i.e., Windows XP and above).

Now to see how much M$ is going to charge us. It'll be interesting to see how quickly someone setups a flavor of Linux with backup client software that can run on Windows for free.

[bang @ Aug 18th 2007 5:00PM]

ditto above post. Another Beta user. Having an easy to use server for backups, remote access and storage for family network is a great product.

[Eric @ Aug 18th 2007 11:53PM]

Hopefully they'll get XP and Vista x64 support working soon. Once they do, I'm buying and OEM copy and building up a box.

[Mike @ Aug 18th 2007 5:28PM]

This definatly is not "yet another varient of Windows". It is Windows 2003 with heavy modifications. I, also, am beta testing WHS, and like it for the most part. I think it should have had another round (or two) of beta releases, though. As of the current beta, there are still quite a few problems. To me, it seems very much like they are in a hurry (for who knows what reason) to release it. I thin it's a huge mistake, but we'll see what it looks like once released.

[Ellianth @ Aug 18th 2007 5:31PM]

Hey!! that's my birthday!! (the 27th)

[Tony @ Aug 18th 2007 6:31PM]

No thank you. They can keep their garbageware. My home is Microshit free and runnin grrrreeeeat.

[MarcosV @ Aug 19th 2007 1:12AM]

FWIW, during the beta, Home Server worked great with Vista x32. My computers woke up from hibernate, backed up stuff, and then went back to sleep successfully. Ditto for XP Pro. Every computer in the network gets a reminder if the there's one or more computers that didn't backup recently. Excellent reminder to backup laptops.

Haven't tried to see if the backup software worked with Vista x64.

What's also fascinating is to hear about the mini servers some companies are coming up with. There's one that supposed to suck down only 25 Watts --- although it probably uses a 2.5" drive that doesn't offer a whole lot of storage, that's still a nice number for a simple backup server in the house hold.

[kawiaa @ Aug 19th 2007 1:38AM]

ka dawt kha ka ngai

[David J Thompson @ Aug 19th 2007 12:40PM]

Marcos - down to 25W ....... yeah, that would be the T7-HSA - in fact PC Pro Magazine in UK measured just 20W - we infact measurefd nearer to 24W. It does in fact have a 500GB HDD (3.5") - and once it gets the WD GP HDD treatment - we believe it will be nearer to 18-19W !! -that of course is with the 1x drive.

When powered with 4x external drives (the T7-HSA powers the Iomega (12VDC) drives, so the in-efficient AC/DC HDD adapters aren't used) the power consumption rises, of course,but still to a bearable 45-60W (depending on R/W status) - so there it is a 5x HDD unit - running nicely for the power of a typical filament light bulb !!!

for our blog - see http://green-pcs.co.uk

[David J Thompson @ Aug 19th 2007 8:40AM]

I’ve been working with WHS for quite some time now. I believe it will satisfy a demand in the home, such a simple, low cost vault. To see what I’ve learnt about it - why not see my blog @ http://green-pcs.co.uk

Let’s hope the promised date is true, and that the RTM cleans up just a few small issues we have been worried about.

Tranquil PC have committed to shipping units within 1st week / 2nd week of September - it was something of a gamble back in late July to commit to this date, but it looks like we got it right.

[David J Thompson @ Aug 23rd 2007 10:28AM]

Gigabit announced - I've heard some great news !!

http://green-pcs.co.uk/2007/08/23/t7-hsa-now-with-gigabit-we-listened/

Nice the guys came up with the solution so quickly !!