We Got Served

On Tuesday, Bill Gates announced three new hardware partners, joining HP in developing new hardware powered by Windows Home Server.

Gateway, Medion and most interestingly, hard drive manufacturer LaCie were revealed to be planning home servers for release later in the year. The Medion product, unsurprisingly christened Medion Home Server is being shown off at WinHEC this week. Storage options will range from 500Gb up to 2Gb, 500GB to 2TB (compared to a quoted 6TB for the HP MediaSmart Server) and will come complete with the ability to stream your media using additional software based on PacketVideo Connect.

On first glance, it looks remarkably similar (if a little less interesting) to the HP MediaSmart Server - black is clearly the new beige when it comes to WHS Interestingly though, both manufacturers have designed good looking kit that may not have to be hidden away in a cupboard - both machines would look great anywhere in the home.

MS also announced that WHS will be made available for system builders meaning that many more smaller companies will be able to offer WHS based machines later in the year - great news, as pricing will get a lot more competitive. Of course, this also means that you will now definitely be able to build your own Home Server too, to allow you to fine tune your preferred configuration exactly (or cobble together a Frankenbuild from spare components around the house!)