As Hewlett-Packard, Apple and other companies prepare to launch new home servers, The VAR Guy offers this concern: Do consumers really want anything branded as a “server”? Many consumers don’t understand server jargon. And those who actually understand a server’s purpose think they are complex, difficult-to-manage boxes that are locked away in a closet or data center. So, what’s the proper label for a home server?
Alas, The VAR Guy doesn’t have a good answer to that question yet.
But let’s start with the good news:
- Consumers need a central device to manage mounds of video, audio and other multimedia files
- Consumers are now network savvy, with WiFi flourishing in millions of homes
- Corporate IT giants like Cisco Systems are preparing to launch stereos and other Internet-enabled devices for the home
- Nimble start-ups are polishing Linux for home servers. One example is the Amahi Linux home server
- Millions of kids stand ready to help their parents install central media systems — a.k.a. home servers
Now for the challenges:
- Consumers aren’t in love with Windows Vista on the desktop. Are they willing to bet on new Windows-based media servers?
- Apple — the king of digital consumer market — apparently is rethinking its Mac Mini and AppleTV efforts because neither appliance-oriented device is thriving. And if Apple can’t hit home runs in the consumer living room what hope do traditional server vendors have?
- Always cynical, The VAR Guy believes “home server” is nothing more than PC companies trying to create a new brand category that offers more product margin than traditional PCs deliver.
What Will They Serve Up Next?
So, how will the home server market emerge? Perhaps The VAR Guy’s own home provides some clues. His home network includes three laptops (running Mac OS X, Ubuntu Linux and Windows XP) and two desktops (running Ubuntu Linux and Windows XP). Over time, more and more media files landed on his Ubuntu Linux desktop. And increasingly, The VAR Guy’s mobile devices fetch and share files with the Ubuntu desktop. Translation: The Ubuntu desktop has emerged as The VAR Guy’s default server.
This scenario will play out across the United States over the next two years: Kids and parents with Netbooks and Notebooks will roam from one WiFi network to the next. And the old home PC will emerge as a default server.
Over time, appliances — such as the Apple SpaceTime and the HP MediaSmart EX487 Server and others — will become next-generation home media servers — but please, don’t call them servers.
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Tags: Amahi Linux Home Server | Apple SpaceTime | Cisco Systems Home Stereo | Hewlett-Packard MediaSmart EX487 Home Server | Home Servers
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All consumers need in terms of a “home sever” is some network attached storage. We don’t need all these contrived devices. HPs Linux version of the home server fits the bill just nicely.
I agree with aikiwolfie and I would add this: people don’t just need a central place to store their digital stockpiles, they need a simple and easy way to manage it – wherever it’s stored.
Apple is great at their software design – maybe instead of a “home server” they come up with a piece of software that helps tie together all of the storage devices and helps people manage their digital “stuff”
Try “media library”. Everyone understands what a library is — it is a place where you put books, movies, CDs, etc. in an organized fashion so you can find what you want when you want it. An Apple-designed library system that really kept track of what you have and made sure it is organized, easily available anywhere you want (portable device, TV, computer screen), and safe(that is, backed up regularly) would be a killer product. iTunes isn’t flexible or well-organized enough, and it doesnt lend itself to easy customization or backup. An Apple box you could buy, plug in and just use with little fuss — that would be sweet for the average user.
When you think about it, it makes sense for the home to house all the “big heavy stuff” that it is too time consuming to ship off to the “cloud.” You also want to share what you have in the home with the rest of the home. Amahi (www.amahi.org) came up with the term “home digital assistant” or HDA – analogous with PDA. I’m not sure it will stick but you get the idea …
Bottomline, the home ‘whatever’ needs to securely store and share all your home stuff (music, video, photos, addressbooks, private docs, etc) in the house and let you access them when you’re on the road. Of course it has to be easy to use, and work across platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) and across devices (media players, phones, game consoles, VoIP phones, etc). Since the digital home is so fluid it will have to be upgradeable and reconfigurable … sounds like an open source solution will be required.
The open source home server from http://www.amahi.org meets all these base requirements – I’ll bet you’ll be able to find it preinstalled on some great OEM hardware in the not too distant future!
Networked attached storage (NAS) and a home server are not one in the same. I have a linux based Western Digital NAS on a home network of three Macs. I have to say that I find the NAS slow, cumbersome and not very “Mac-like” in terms of ease of use.If all you need is storage, Mac users are better served with an Apple Time capsule. An NAS will not work with Time Machine.
I would buy a reasonably priced Apple home server in a heart beat. I have been looking into buying a used Mac Mini and a copy of Mac OS 10.5 Server on Ebay. I figure I can buy a used Core2Duo Mini for about $450 and a copy of Leopard Server for about $150. I would then slap in 1 TB drive for about another $100. So, for about $700, I can put together a home server running Leopard. The only thing I haven’t researched yet is whether I can also use the server as a central iTunes media server and DVR. (I just ordered a Tube Stick so that I can record TV to my Mac)
greetings from the ski mountains of New York. No home servers in site. But my iPhone is holding up nicely in the 5 degree weather.
LOL shut up VAR Guy
p
It’s true NAS and home servers aren’t the same. NAS is more of a traditional file server. Home servers try to be everything. As for Time Machine. Never used it. So I don’t know how it works. But I’m betting it’s a matter of how you have it set up. As I understand Macs, they mount storage devices in a similar way to Linux. So you should be able to coax it to work.
I’m not sure what you mean by “Mac like”. But working over a network is always going to be slower than working on a local hard drive. That’s why “streaming” is employed to play back large media files over a network.
*web cache
*local search engine
*local bulletin board
*high performance storage
A properly designed server can improve performance many ways. People who are used to using Google to find things in an instant in hundreds of millions of web servers should not have to poke around in a file-system to find stuff. Individual users can have millions of files these days. They need a way to find them if they are going to access them. A few gadgets added to a file server make it really useful. RAID on the server can make it faster, too.
My family just moved to a newer house. As the basement was unfinished, a gigabit/s LAN was installed over the holiday period. A dual-socket quad-core monster server with 4 1TB drives should be able to manage a ton of apps on the local server. Sure, this is more than we need, but we want it.
Storage is nearly empty and without a search engine I have a hard time to find anything. SWISH-e or Gallery is in order. There are 6 PCs in the house. The ISP gives us up to 28 mbits/s. It is a brave new world even for old-fashioned file serving.
Ski mountains of New York? I’ve seen what they call “mountains” in New York. By Rocky Mountain or Sierra Nevada standards, those are not mountains. Hills maybe, but not even close to mountains.
I’m still trying to figure out a reasonable way to organize and store my digital life so it is both save and accessible when I’m traveling.
I’m really excited about Amahi. Installs easily on any old machine. If you have a spare PC with RAID on the motherboard, go get two 1TB drives, hook them up in RAID-1, install Amahi and you’re good to go.
Easy to set access control rights, configure automatic backup, has browser based music serving plug-in as a bonus. The “Slideshow” app is simply amazing for showing off photos to friends.
Plus it ships with a zero-configuration VPN for accessing your files from outside the home. I haven’t tried that part yet.
This really nice application. Install it, reboot, and Windows sees the shares right away.
All you have to do to install it is start with a Fedora 10 DVD, add the Amahi repository during the Fedora install, run hda-install (+ your unique install code) and you’re good to go. Configuring access rights and users takes another 2 or 3 minutes. That’s it.
And unlike Windows Home Server, RAID is a supported hardware configuration. What pushed me away from even trying WHS was the proprietary “Drive Extender” file-system.
Muad’Dib: Can you come on over to The VAR Guy’s house and do an install? Seems like you’ve got deep expertise that our resident blogger lacks…