* Case based on the mATX standard (micro-ATX)
* room for three to four 3,5" HDD's
* one 5,25" slot (for DVD-RW)
* Preferably as silent as possible (read: no tiny annoying fans in it, only large ones - starting at 80mm but preferably larger)
* harddisk drives accessible from the front with a removable drive bay (this is the tricky part)

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Why aren’t you releasing the software standalone to consumers?

We want to help ensure customers have a simplified, quality experience with Windows Home Server. The best way to do this is to deliver Windows Home Server on integrated hardware/software solutions through OEMs and system builders that are tested and meet system requirements.

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I know there has been mention that WHS won't be available as a separate software purchase, but I doubt this. I've even seen it pop up already in a few price lists of online shops, at about 130 euro for the OEM version.

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Linux distro with way more capability.

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Linux distro with way more capability.

Out of the box? Read the WHS specification page.

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Can a Linux server be setup nowadays without having to use the terminal (too much)?

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Does Linux support hibernation/wake-on-lan?

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Can it be used also for media files streaming as well as simple file serving? (which is -granted- almost the same thing).

Look at your empeg running Hijack -- it "streams" mp3 to your PC/whatever, and it's not even a fancy full-fledged Linux distro!

But I don't know much about "complexifying" things that ought to be simple, so I suppose the answer depends more upon what the client software expects (my clients here are all using Linux).

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Could you point me towards a faq or a how-to of some sort which could help me with this?

By far the best way is to have a mate drop over and help out initially. That really shortens the learning curve. I'd offer to, but I suspect we live far far away from each other.

Every major Linux distro includes thousands upon thousands of pages of "HOW-TO" documents, user manuals, help files, etc..

Which nobody ever seems to look at.

Cheers

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Can it be used also for media files streaming as well as simple file serving?

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One nit with their "Server" edition, is that it doesn't include a useful GUI by default (WTF?).

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The "terminal" is usually the *easy* way to do complex things. But if you really prefer mousey methods, then yes, that's actually the default "in your face" mode of most major Linux distros now. Many of them even go to the extreme of making it somewhat difficult to even find a "terminal" window. Which apparently pleases review columnists, but peeves the heck of out me!

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Look at your empeg running Hijack -- it "streams" mp3 to your PC/whatever, and it's not even a fancy full-fledged Linux distro!

Ah, yes, very true.

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By far the best way is to have a mate drop over and help out initially. That really shortens the learning curve. I'd offer to, but I suspect we live far far away from each other.

Hey, what's a few thousand km's these days?
You're right of course. And this is probably the main reason why I haven't switched to Linux (yet?): since none of my friends use Linux, I would have to learn it all on my own, with no-one to consult in case problems pop up (which will, of course). This in contrast to the DOS-days, when everybody worked in DOS, and when an answer to any question was always pretty easy to get. Now I would always have to search for the answer myself. Which brings me to the following point...

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Every major Linux distro includes thousands upon thousands of pages of "HOW-TO" documents, user manuals, help files, etc..

Which nobody ever seems to look at.

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In Dutch we have a saying, which would be very appropriate in this case: there's so much information out there, it's become almost impossible to still 'see the forest through all the trees.'

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The nice thing in your situation, is that you're not already addicted to payware for this situation. Once they hook you, quitting the habit is nearly impossible for many folks.

Trust me, I'm pretty hooked. But I'm willing to give it a try...
Would you believe I've already bought a few books about linux, and only last month I bought a local computer magazine special all about Linux which included Suse 10.2 (I know 10.3 has been released by now). I've also already downloaded Suse 10.0 to my PC once, ready to install... where it has remained ever since because the water turned out to be too deep after all.

You have to understand my situation. I'm what I would call the 'family, friend and collegues' PC consultant', so I have to deal with fixing (windows) PC's quite a lot. Then, when I turn on my own pc, I just want it to work, without having to fiddle with it. (I don't mean because Linux need a lot of fiddling with, but because my experience with it is zero)

I'm not alone in this situation. I know for a fact that most of my Pc-savvy friends would also be willing to give it a try, but I know them, they are just waiting for me to cave in first, so I could then tackle all the essential first-timer problems on my own and they could take advantage of my freshly-gained knowledge. (damn then! )

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For your situation, there are a few Linux operating systems ("distributions") that can do the job.

I know. This is also one of the advantages with Linux, which works against it when it comes to 'converting newcomers', I'm sure. I know, so many personal tastes, so many Linux flavours, but it only makes it more difficult for newcomers...

I had already worked out that GNOME was not the best choice to make, so I wanted to use KDE. (even though GNOME comes with most of the software I'm used to currently, like Firefox eg., but I'm sure those apps will run fine on KDE as well). So when I choose an out-of-the-box solution, there's really only Suse and Kubuntu to choose from. (well, when it comes to the 'big distro names anyway) Since Kubuntu is still the 'little brother' of Ubuntu, I had already decided I was going to go with Suse.

So you see, I had already planned this phase coming into my life on day. It might as well be now.

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There isn't, however, a really good Linux media server for the open UPnP standards yet (or, at least, not a free one).

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There's gmediaserver, but it's not as full-featured as Windows Media Connect. If you have mainly UPnP clients such as MP101 or XBox, WHS is going to be a better bet until Linux catches up.

I'm currently busy ripping all my DVD, and I'm keeping them in the mpeg2 format. (no DivX or Xvid encoding). Storage is cheap enough these days for this not to become a problem. The reason I'm not re-encoding those files into a Divx or so is because I want to be sure to keep the 'original quality'. (the same reason why some people choose FLAC over MP3 I guess). The goal of this project is to create a 'movie jukebox', which I could then use to stream the movies from to a (still to be purchased) 1080p projector.

I already have the network mediaplater player, that's this Freecom 350 model (which is nothing more than a reboxed version of this unit, I found out later). It works very well.

In a later stage, I would then probably add an in-house solution also, something like the Squeezebox, or a complete Sonos setup. Not quite sure which one to choose yet.

I'd also like to use the server to backup my home pc's, and maybe also install a little email server on it. (not sure about that one yet). You know, about everything what WHS promises, with the exception of the email server...

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I had already worked out that GNOME was not the best choice to make, so I wanted to use KDE. (even though GNOME comes with most of the software I'm used to currently, like Firefox eg., but I'm sure those apps will run fine on KDE as well). So when I choose an out-of-the-box solution, there's really only Suse and Kubuntu to choose from. (well, when it comes to the 'big distro names anyway) Since Kubuntu is still the 'little brother' of Ubuntu, I had already decided I was going to go with Suse.

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In Dutch we have a saying, which would be very appropriate in this case: there's so much information out there, it's become almost impossible to still 'see the forest through all the trees.'

We have the same in English, though the wording tends to be along the lines of "can't see the wood for the trees".

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I already have the network mediaplater player, that's this Freecom 350 model (which is nothing more than a reboxed version of this unit, I found out later). It works very well.

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One nit with their "Server" edition, is that it doesn't include a useful GUI by default (WTF?).

I thought that was a good idea. My basic Ubuntu Server machine at work doesn't have a monitor and I wouldn't use remote X on it either.

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Every major Linux distro includes thousands upon thousands of pages of "HOW-TO" documents, user manuals, help files, etc..

Which nobody ever seems to look at.

I do!



(Although, truthfully, I tend not to install most of the HOW-TO documents in favour of using the web versions.)

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In Dutch we have a saying, which would be very appropriate in this case: there's so much information out there, it's become almost impossible to still 'see the forest through all the trees.'

We have the same in English, though the wording tends to be along the lines of "can't see the wood for the trees".

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I'm currently busy ripping all my DVD, and I'm keeping them in the mpeg2 format. (no DivX or Xvid encoding). Storage is cheap enough these days for this not to become a problem. The reason I'm not re-encoding those files into a Divx or so is because I want to be sure to keep the 'original quality'. (the same reason why some people choose FLAC over MP3 I guess). The goal of this project is to create a 'movie jukebox', which I could then use to stream the movies from to a (still to be purchased) 1080p projector.

I already have the network mediaplater player, that's this Freecom 350 model (which is nothing more than a reboxed version of this unit, I found out later). It works very well.

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I've ripped all of my DVDs and put them on a fileserver as MPEG2 in VOB format. Works great most...

The only issue is that anything that isn't actually a full blown computer doesn't seem to be able to do the menus when streaming. You can play the video and have all the features. You just can't get the menu so you have to wonder whether RandomExtraFeature is what stream. From what I could find when researching this a couple years back is that its part of the DVD licensing that forbids you from doing this.

I can stream and get the menus if I use a PC/Mac however but thats a bit overboard...

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Most of the time this will not be an issue for me, because I only rip the movie, with English DD (or DTS) sound, and the Dutch and English subs.
I agree this could become a problem when I start ripping my TV series DVD's, cause those usually contain 4 to 5 series per disc...

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Come to think of it: what do you use to rip your DVD's? I use AnyDVD combined with CloneDVD, but I can't really remember having seen an option to also rip the menus...

• Protocol support. AFP, NFS, SMB, FTP, rsync, and Webdav for files. So no matter what OS, or location I'm at, I can get at my files easily. SCP is coming in 4.0 firmware along with full open SSH access.
  
• Media streaming. Out of the box it does daapd for iTunes and such, uPnP for the PS3 and others, and some protocol used by networked DVD players. Additional support can be added.
  
• Expandability. You can start out with 2 disks mirroring each other, then plop in a 3rd disk to expand the space and switch to raid 5 without data loss. Then add a 4th disk later. It is still a RAID based system though, so drives do need to be identical in size. WHS and devices like the Drobo are moving towards file based redundancy and not block level redundancy allowing mixed sized disks, and I see the benefit of that. Most likely my Infrant replacement down the road will require this feature.
  
• USB support for various things. I can attach a printer to share it, attach a disk or media card to share it, or attach a USB disk to backup. It can also use a USB port to monitor the UPS it is attached to for proper shutdown.
  
• Speed. Looking at the benchmarks I found, the Infrant devices tended to be near the top in the home market.
  
• Power usage and thermal monitoring. The box has variable speed fans for cooling, and can also do scheduled shutdowns and startups, and spin down disks when idle.
  
• Warranty. So initially the cost seemed somewhat high to me, especially when I found pre Netgear branded boxes for a bit cheeper. Netgear expanded the warranty out to 5 years now though, so the cost seems reasonable for that. Combine it with 5 year warranty hard drives and the box will last me for a while.
  
• Hackability. It is running Linux under the hood, SPARC based Debian and with the next firmware SSH access will be allowed to anyone who wants it to extend the system beyond their existing system of adding in addins.
  
• Hardware RAID. So yeah, I know there is a big discussion of hardware vs software that has spun up here quite a bit, but for this particular setup it makes sense. The CPU doesn't have to be super beefy to allow for good performance.
  

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I'm probably going to by a major-branded Windows Home Server, throw away Windows, and run OpenSolaris or something. The WHS boxes have much faster CPUs than the Infrant which should lead to great performance. The WHS license isn't worth much, but I'll at least play with it.

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I found the hardware of the two pre-built WHS's I was able to track (HP and Medion) a bit lacking

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Lacking in speed, lacking in build quality, too loud, something else?

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I imagine (perhaps without justification) that there will be a slew of vendors getting into the business of selling WHS boxes in time for Christmas. Who knows, maybe even Apple will have a competitive surprise up their sleeves.

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the fact HP server only has 512 MB of memory, which I doubt will be sufficient, judging on how economical Windows usually deals with RAM...

You be surprised, a Windows server just doing some light file serving and backup duties (which is what WSH will be doing) can cope perfectly fine on 512 MB. In fact my main Window server here still only has 386MB and that is a database server too.

It tends to be desktop apps that use up huge gobs of memory, largely because they are more visible to users and so Microsoft et al keep throwing features at them endlessly

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Tom, what benchmarks did you see for the Infrant that showed them near the top? I've only ever seen tests that show them near the bottom. In fact all SoHo NAS solutions were abysmal for speed at only a fraction of the data transfer rate of external USB or Firewire devices (even when connected via an all Gigabit path).