Windows Home Server (WHS)

This one has been a long time coming - Windows Home Server. I'm sure they knew that Windows Server even with all its SMB version dressing up would never cut it for home environment. But they must have noticed how every DLink, Linksys, Buffalo etc. has come out with some kind of NAS device that in many cases could be replaced by WHS.

At first take I was a little surprised they didn't include RAID support. But then thinking about it, most "consumer" type users of consumer RAID capable external storage devices I have come across choose to configure them as multiple drives or one big drive (JBOD). Very few have configured RAID 1. The rationale seems to be either

a) if they paid for x hundred GB of storage they want to use it all, not half
b) the disk is used for backup anyway so they already have a copy of their data - the original on their PC.
c) they just don't understand what RAID means
d) they don't believe or care that disk drives fail (probably 'coz one never failed on them yet)
e) they would use RAID but they only have two large drives and need RAID for only some of their data - eg. the OS part, and the rest they dont really care about.

I think b) makes sense for many people but only if they have a reliable backup strategy, in my experience most don't. For me I'd be happy with a good daily,weekly and monthly 'dd' or Acronis disk image of my system disk, and a rsync or file level copy of my photo albums. They rest I'll keep for a rainy day and HD TV I record.

As such WHS would probably work for me if I wasn't too geeky to consider FreeNAS or others a serious alternative for me. And I'll happily install WHS at some of the SMBs I do work for - it will be one less full PC for me to manage and fight with viruses and spyware on. Simple file sharing and remote access is a big deal for many SMBs who don't want to deal with Windows Server SMB - I'm sure WHS will sell just because it has the windows label even if there are more capable 3rd party products out there.