News - ASUS launches Atom-powered mini Windows Home Server

[HEXUS]

Wanting to try your hand at running a Windows Home Server? ASUS reckons its Home Server TS mini could be the perfect starting point.

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[aidanjt]

Strange chassis design.

[MaddAussie]

small ickle hideaway jobbie looks good to me

[Anosh]

Looks great to me I have to say!
BUT there is not connector for DVI, VGA or anything else for that matter!
What happens if I choose to format and/or reinstall?

[fawlters]

Why no WiFi?

[jim]

Looks great to me I have to say!
BUT there is not connector for DVI, VGA or anything else for that matter!
What happens if I choose to format and/or reinstall?

With any half-decent home server you don't need direct access to reinstall, it will sort it out itself once you've inserted the restoration media. If you desperately need it you can usually get yourself access by taking off a blanking plate or opening up the chassis.

Why no WiFi?

Because it's a server.

[aidanjt]

Is your router all out of ethernet ports?

[Anosh]

With any half-decent home server you don't need direct access to reinstall, it will sort it out itself once you've inserted the restoration media. If you desperately need it you can usually get yourself access by taking off a blanking plate or opening up the chassis.

On all the pictures I've seen I can't find any physical connector for any type of graphical unit.

Imagine I would like to install Windows Home Server 2011 or whatever on it! Or some linux variant!

Edit:
Granted I could use a usb gpu and take it from there, but that assumes Home server OS has the drivers, if required with usb gpu, and that I either have one at home or am willing to buy one!

[aidanjt]

It's not really a 'server', more like a NAS appliance.

[jim]

On all the pictures I've seen I can't find any physical connector for any type of graphical unit.

Imagine I would like to install Windows Home Server 2011 or whatever on it! Or some linux variant!

Edit:
Granted I could use a usb gpu and take it from there, but that assumes Home server OS has the drivers, if required with usb gpu, and that I either have one at home or am willing to buy one!

Get a different one then where you can see it, like a SQ-A5H - I'm positive that they'll all have them hidden away somewhere, it's just that they tend to keep them hidden to stop people thinking that they need to plug it into a monitor.

And I can't, for the life of me, understand why you'd want to fork out for a WHS (license and all) and then chuck Linux on it. Unless you loved Linux and couldn't find any cases that you liked, which I'd say is fairly unlikely.

[Anosh]

Get a different one then where you can see it, like a SQ-A5H - I'm positive that they'll all have them hidden away somewhere, it's just that they tend to keep them hidden to stop people thinking that they need to plug it into a monitor.

And I can't, for the life of me, understand why you'd want to fork out for a WHS (license and all) and then chuck Linux on it. Unless you loved Linux and couldn't find any cases that you liked, which I'd say is fairly unlikely.

At some point in time that MS OS will get old and incompatible with whatever other MS OS that has become standard on the desktops. Why would I then wish to buy something else if I can format this and reuse it?

Well actually, your last assumption is incorrect! I do find the case very compelling and regard it to be the most suitable for me!

[GaryRW]

Have Asus confirmed that this will be sold in the UK?

I did look briefly into pre-built WHS's, and the availability in the UK seemed fairly dire. I think Acer have made WHS's but none seem to have made it over here. It's only HP ones in the UK from what I can see.

I reckon with the intel D945GSEJT board (Atom N270 + mobile 945 chipset), it should be relatively easy to get close to the 28w that Asus are claiming.

£85 for the board
£60 for WHS license
£30-40 quid for the single 500gb HDD
£30-40 for 2 gb DDR2 533
£30-40 for a cheap case
£40 for a low wattage PSU (or £60-70 for a mini-itx DC/DC board + AC brick for better low wattage efficiency)

A total of say £275 - £330 ish. So even with a straight £/$ exchange, $349 seems reasonable compared to a home build (assuming you haven't got any of the above lying around spare ). I somehow suspect it would be cheaper to buy the 500gb version and put your own larger drives in though...

[Biscuit]

2 x e-sata is a pretty nice addition, you dont get that from many mini ITX boards and it give the nice option of extending the capacity using 2 seperate DAS boxes.

[GaryRW]

2 x e-sata is a pretty nice addition, you dont get that from many mini ITX boards and it give the nice option of extending the capacity using 2 seperate DAS boxes.

Good point - I missed that. I was thinking the Intel board was roughly equivalent, but it's only got 2 x sata and 0 x esata.

[jim]

Have Asus confirmed that this will be sold in the UK?

I did look briefly into pre-built WHS's, and the availability in the UK seemed fairly dire. I think Acer have made WHS's but none seem to have made it over here. It's only HP ones in the UK from what I can see.

Currently it's only really HP and Tranquil that are putting out home servers in the UK, but both of them are fairly compelling. The main thing is that both of them make servers that hold 4+ hard drives, which is important in my eyes.

It's no use saying that a 2-disk server is a 4TB unit if it's going to cost you a fortune to buy the disks, and it will be a massive pain to swap them over.

[chis]

All these home-server things are interesting, but then I remember I took an old Dell Dimension L800CX, disconnected the optical drive, stuck in an IDE to compact flash converter and a 1TB hard disk (WD Green). I installed freenas on the CF drive and... presto. A cheap home server.

And it idles at 28-29W.

Anyway I'm sure these Atom-based units do the job, but would they be much faster than a 1GHz P3?