Las Vegas, Nev. – Executives at the CES here revealed that Microsoft's long-rumored “home server” software will debut on a Hewlett Packard system designed specifically for that new home and personal computing classification.

Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman, said during a presentation at the show that the Windows Home Server is designed for homes with either  multiple PCs or Xboxes, and a need to have stored files available at all times on different devices.

HP is branding its offering as the MediaSmart Server, and Windows Home Server software and HP’s enhancements that will run on top of that.

MediaSmart Server will be powered by a 1.8GHz 64-bit Sempron processor from Advanced Micro Devices, with four hard drive bays and four USB ports for printer or external storage connections.

Coming in a box about 10 inches high by 5.5 wide by 9 deep, the HP Server could support six terabytes (1,000 Gigabytes), if all four bays available were provisioned with  750GB drives and all four USB ports used to connect to similar-sized external drives.

The new server software is based on Windows Server 2003 code, not the upcoming Longhorn as earlier rumored. The software will not be sold to end users, only to equipment makers and system integrators and will thus not be available to turn a standard PC into a home server.

Available by the beginning of school in the fall of the year, the software will perform automated backups of all systems connected to the network, let users restore damaged PCs from the central storage device, provide remote access via a personalized (and free) Windows Live Internet address, and stream digital content to Xbox 360 game consoles or others Windows Media Connect-supported hardware.

Non-Windows systems using Mac OS X or Linux will see the home server software as just a file server, but will be able to access data via Windows' SMB (Server Message Block) file sharing protocol.

On the HP MediaSmart Server, a user will be able to open a drawer to a bay and slide in a new drive while the server is powered up.

To learn more, go to www.hp.com  or www.microsoft.com. 

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