While some of the tips are just common sense (Back up your data before you start! Make sure you set up backups after installation is complete!) there are some good gotcha-avoiding pointers on topics such as setting up Remote Access and password creation guidelines. Well worth a read for WHS first-timers and veterans alike.

There are three flavors of the PX-NAS2, all of which feature two drive bays. The PX-NAS2-BL1 doesn’t include any drives, but lands at a fairly stiff (for the consumer market) $225 MSRP. The PX-NAS2-1T1 (MSRP $355.00) includes 1TB of storage across two 500 GB dives, and the PX-NAS2-2T1 (MSRP $565.00) boasts 2TBs total, across a part of 1 TB drives.

That’s quite a price premium when good quality 1 TB drives are readily available at around $100, and while I’ve historically had a good experience with Plextor products, I think they need to be a bit more aggressive with their pricing in a fairly crowded market space.

Full details of all three of PX-NAS2 models can be found on the Plextor site.

Also available and highly recommended are the first two installments, What Is a Home Server and Build Your Own Home Server.

This should rock the boat a bit at HP. Their cheapest Windows Home Server-based system is the MediaSmart LX195, which runs just under $400. While the LX195 is also Atom processor powered, it has half the RAM (1GB compared to 2), 640GB of hard drive space out the box, and is only expandable via attaching additional drives to the USB ports on the back.The easyStore H340, on the other hand, handles expansion like HP’s EX485 and EX487, with spare drive bays.

For users looking for a full-featured, Windows Home Server-based system, Acer’s Aspire easyStore H340 is shaping up to be a compelling option.

The SQA-5H-1000 is the entry-level unit with 1GB RAM, 500 GB hard drive space and four spare hard drive bays for expansion.

The SQA-5H-2000 is their top drawer unit, boasting 2 GB RAM, 1 TB hard drive space and four spare hard drive bays for expansion.

The only downside for those of us in the US? There’s no domestic distributor yet, so we’ll have to pay for overseas shipping, and like most things purchased in British pounds, you’ll wind up paying a premium because of the weak US dollar.

The pricing on the Tranquil PC Online Shop for the SQA-5H-1000 is about £440 and the SQA-5H-2000 comes in at about £500. That will put you firmly in the $700 to $800 range, including tax and shipping.

All of that said, these are beautiful little boxes – quiet, compact, easy-to-use and very energy efficient. But if you live in the US, if probably makes more sense to spring for one of the HP MediaSmart servers with similar hard drive specs until Tranquil PC strikes a deal with a US distributor.

You can learn more about Tranquil PC and their products on their blog.

It’s tough to pinpoint exactly what a high-volume vendor like HP is paying per Windows Home Server license, but it should be interesting to see what downward pressure this will have on the pricing of their popular MediaSmart servers, with a base MSRP of around $550.

For their part Microsoft seems to be claiming that the price drop doesn’t have anything to do with slow sales and I believe them – everything I’ve seen indicates that Windows Home Server has actually been quite successful. My guess is that Microsoft sees this as a good opportunity to make a push to get devices running the server software into as many homes as possible. The home server market it still in its early landgrab phases, and Microsoft wants to make sure they have as big a slice of that pie as possible. Mmmmm, pie.

(The software) is adding CD ripping to the list of features, according to the 1.0.0.7 announcement of My Movies for Windows Home Server. Brian also comments to We Got Served that the CD ripper will encode music tracks to MP3 or WAV copy and gather its corresponding metadata from FreeDB.org.

I remember hearing about a digital future in which every home has a server, “just like a furnace in the basement.” This “basement server” – connected to digital cable, satellite, DSL and so on – is envisioned as delivering music, video and multimedia content to a variety of digital consumer devices throughout the home.

Technologists, typically demonstrating a rather complex user interface, have shown how I can pick any song, video clip or movie that fits my mood, and summon it instantly to any TV anywhere in the house. This, they have said, is a veritable digital-home nirvana.

Frankly, I’ve never bought into the idea. We all know how electronics systems can go haywire – without warning. What happens if the basement server mysteriously shorts out and the whole home entertainment system – connected to this home server – fizzles? What do we do? Pump out the cellar? Call the Orkin Man? The Geek Squad?

I think I must fall into Yoshida’s “technologist” category, because I love having access to videos, audio or anything else throughout my house and even remotely. User interfaces are getting better and hardware – with the help of appropriate backup and RAID approaches – is quite reliable.

I understand the need to make technology accessible, and I think that many of the home server solutions available are just a rev or two at most away from being as easy to use as a TiVo.

We’ll be updating the site frequently, so visit again soon!