Affordable servers are here for everyone. This home Server idea is great for home and small businesses. Here I have the HP home server I bought for myself and family. From the beginning, the HP impressed me with its elegant design and won me over with its simple software.
To start, the HP Windows Home Server is amazingly small, it fits just about anywhere. Open the front door to reveal 4 slots to install SATA hard drives, turn it around and there is the necessary Gigabit Ethernet port, a ESATA port, and a 3 USB ports for external hard drives. Supposedly drives can be swapped while the machine is on.
The HP comes with 3 discs, one for the HP as a recovery, one for installing the connector software necessary to backup your computers, and one for reinstalling windows on a failed but backed up computer. Yes, if I am to understand everything, you only need the one CD to backup any computer that needs to be restored and has been previously backed up. I suspect, during the process, you will need the original installation disc. You will also get a setup poster, a couple of manuals, and necessary cables to get up and running.
Upon installing the connector software, I noticed there were some pretty cool features HP added. Namely, the ability to keep all your music in a central place and make it available in iTunes in every computer on y
our network. Each computer has its own backup and can have shared folders. You automatically have folders setup so you can share files with every computer. This is possible with current Windows but because you will always leave your server on, the files will always be available. You can setup a way to log into your PC when you are not in your network, share photos online making your server a web site and much more. What is really worth mentioning is the fact that Windows created some sort of challenge for developers to develop software for the server so you will see software that will make the server better soon.
The main thing that makes this Home Server so good for everyday people is because it backs up your computer and you can forget about everything. You 
don’t have to worry about anything, changes on your computer is backed up every night. You can backup your whole system in the even of a failure or just backup certain files or drives. File backup is necessary because it is not a matter of if your hard drive will fail but a matter of when.
The only downside to Windows Home Server is going to be fixed soon with the recently announced Power Pack 1. The Power Pack will fix some bugs and more important, allow 64 bit connector support. Most people only use the most common 32 bit but anyone using x64 is out of luck for a little while. The release is set to be sometime in the first quarter of 08 so pay attention, it will coming soon.