Windows Home Server might say “home” in the product name, but its low maintenance cost makes it an ideal choice for small businesses. A simple, little WHS can provide comprehensive back up, remote access, and centralized storage for a workgroup. However, businesses don’t need all the fancy-pants media programs that come on HPs MediaSmart line. Enter the HP StorageWorks X510Data Vault.

It wasn’t the LP albums or redesigned look that got me excited when Apple announced iTunes 9. Nope, it was the function called Home Sharing that touted the ability to share and copy media over a LAN easily. Sure, you could always drop all your music files into a centralized network share and rock out that way, but while that method works, it’s not elegant or easy for others to use.

The only problem is that Windows Home Server and the current version of iTunes 9 do not get along. It takes a little hacking to get the program installed right now, but hopefully the next release will install fine. Until then though, I got iTunes 9 to install on my WHS following some of the tips mentioned in this forum thread.

Warning: You will not be able to sync your iPod or iPhone directly to your WHS if you install iTunes 9 with this method because you have to remove the services needed for device control in order for it to install. But with Home Sharing, you can easily manage the content you want on another computer anyway. It will also cause a few pop-up error messages when your WHS starts up but it’s not like you restart your server everyday and, in my eyes, the benefits of Home Sharing outweighs the annoyance of the pop-ups.

Some people – especially those that have a 100Mbps connection – can actually fill up one an Acer Aspire easyStore WHS. But for some reason, the stock eSATA port doesn’t support port multiplication so that means you will not able able to use one of those multi-drive eSATA enclosures. Have no fear. There is a solution.

I will continue to preach the benefits of Windows Home Server until everyone is using it. I promise. With that said, The Windows Home Server Blog has an excellent top 10 reasons why you should use WHS. The list is simple, to the point, but not totally complete. I would like to add a few of my own if that’s okay.

Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 beta has been out for just over a month and it’s a welcomed update. It adds a whole slew of Windows 7 and Media Center functions, along with fixing a ton of little bugs. But if you’ve been on the fence about installing the beta release, check out this extensive video tour by the Power Pack 3 beta Program Manager, CJ Saretto. If you’re already rocking the beta, you still may wanna check out the video for some undiscovered functions.

Quick, you wanna buy this Acer easyStore before the deal expires. Newegg is throwing in an extra 1TB drive for the price of nothing. That means you get a 2TB WHS for only $399. Awesome!

Well, the one big advantage HP had in the Windows Home Server game maybe about to disappear. Someone has found a relatively easy way to enable remote Time Machine backup to a WHS. It’s probably only a matter of time before a rough GUI version appear followed up shortly later by a well-polished solution.

The only beef I have with the HP LX195 is the price for the amount of storage. Newegg must have heard my cries as the retailer is now throwing in an Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB USB external hard drive. That means, you can get 1.67 TB of storage in a Windows Home Server for only $375. Now that’s a deal, but you better hurry as it ends on 6/25/09.

Don’t forget that we are giving away one of these servers in our recent review. Just leave a comment in this post to be entered.

Who doesn’t want a working cigar humidor that also has a Windows Home Server with 2TB of storage? No one. Mainly because everyone’s smoking room also doubles as their server room. After all, cigar smoke and computers are meant to hang in the same crowd.

We just took delivery of Acer’s first Windows Home Server, the Acer easyStore H340. So far, so good. The machine is heavy and well made. It feels just as good as HP’s EX series. I am thinking that HP’s might have better cooling with a Mac Pro-type front, but we’ll run some tests and see if temperature is even an issue with the Acer. Hopefully this machine preforms as well as it looks.

If it does, HP has a problem as this 1TB WHS is only $399 verses the $647 post rebate price for its EX487 1.5TB model. That’s a big difference and it doesn’t matter how much extra software HP is loading on it. Price and storage is the most important selling points on these servers.

Anyway, click through for a gallery of unboxing pics.

HP had the Windows Home Server market all to itself until recently. First it was CyberPower, now Acer has entered the market with a small footprint WHS. The Acer Aspire easyStore AH340-UA230N might be the best deal out of all of them though.

PlayOn is good piece of software but it also requires Windows Media Player 11 to install. This is a problem on Windows Home Server as I just discovered while reviewing a Moxi HD DVR review. However, it can be installed as one intrepid commenter pointed out.

Side note: See, this is what I’m ranting about. I get a Moxi HD DVR, but to use it properly, I need to follow a wiki entry step-by-step. I hate it.

Windows Home Servers are great. Really, they are. I have been running a box that I built myself out of an old AMD Athlon XP 1900+ for almost a year and half now with zero complaints. It seems a guy on Microsoft’s forum site has managed to convert his Thecus N5200 NAS into a WHS. This hack isn’t super easy, but if you have a NAS laying around and don’t want to drop the cake on a pre-built WHS, it might be worth trying for a step up in functionality.

Windows Home Server is a solid piece of software and it’s great seeing more companies embrace the operating system. CyberPower is the latest to get into the market with the Windows Home Server 100. An Intel Atom 330 1.6Ghz is at the core running on a MB with video out (something the HP MediaSmart does not have and is handy to have), 2GB of RAM, and Gigabit Ethernet. Sadly, there is only a 500GB hard drive for storage but the $399 price should leave you enough cake left over to add a TB. WHS easily allows you to add the drive to the RAID cluster too.