Thanks for the article Windows Home Server – Why you should buy it for your Home Office.
WHS is certainly a decent product, but it does have some of shortcomings which people should consider before deciding to buy. Firstly, while you can back your computers up to the server, you cannot (easily) backup either the server itself or the data which it holds. The functionality simply does not exist. Given that many people will be pushing their precious data onto the server, this is a major omission which will, according to MS, be at least partially addressed with the release of PP1. Another shortcoming of WHS backup is that only XP and Vista computers can be backed up and you'll need to maintain an alternative strategy for any clients with an older OS. Secondly, should you have any x64 clients, you'll not be able to connect them to WHS - and if all your clients are x64, you can completely forget about WHS. Yup, that's right, WHS only supports x86 clients. Again, this is something that's likely to be fixed in PP1, but it's nonetheless an odd and serious omission. Thirdly and finally, while WHS remote access functionality is excellent, it can only be used to access clients running XP Pro SP2, MCE 2005, XP TE SP2 or Vista Business, Ultimate or Enterprise. Home offices running W2K, Vista Home or Home Premium - and many will be - will need to look to some other remote access solution.
In summary, if you need a server and your computers are all running 32-bit versions of the business-orientated editions of XP and/or Vista, then WHS is probably an obvious choice. However, if your environment is mixed, you may well wish to think carefully about whether WHS is really the best option at this point in time.
