Another requirement is that the server must be connected to the network router or switch with a wired Ethernet connection of at least 100MB/sec. The router and other PCs can be wireless, but that primary wired connection is needed in order to get the performance necessary to stream multimedia content to the other computers. Fortunately, 100MB and even Gigabit Ethernet switches are relatively inexpensive and may not pose much of a disincentive to buyers.

Other requirements are less important because the system will be delivered preconfigured with the required processing power (at least 1GHz), memory capacity (at least 512MB) and Ethernet port.

Ready to grow

Microsoft has done a great job of hiding the complexities of server management in Home Server. My test unit had two hard drives, a 60GB drive and a 120GB drive. In a standard PC or server, those drives would appear as separate drive letters, and files moved to the server would need to be explicitly placed on one or the other drive.

The Home Server uses a "drive extender" function that masks the complexity of multiple drives by simply extending the logical space when drives are added to the system. This makes the entire pool of disks appear as a single volume. The bottom line is that users simply place their files in folders without regard to what drive the folders are on.