These Intel Atom N280 1.66GHz Windows Home Servers can back up to 10 PCs and serve all the files you want. It has two 3.5-inch bays for up to 2 terabytes of storage space, with one Gigabit Ethernet port, and six USB 2.0 ports to add more storage or whatever you want. [Asus via Hot Hardware via Engadget]

It looks like the same unit that the US sells for $US400, complete with 1.6GHz Atom processor and 1TB HDD (and three spare slots), although no firm local pricing or release dates have been announced. But one thing’s for sure, the Home Server market looks like it might actually be going somewhere…

[APC – Thanks Dean!]

What it still does

HP’s Windows Home Servers are exceptional because they take the standard Home Server build and add a bunch of extras on top of it. For example, HP was the first one to introduce support for Apple’s Time Machine, which has been improved here so that you can do a complete restore in the event that you have to start your Mac up from scratch.

They’ve also still got the media streaming (DLNA compliant), web/iPhone streaming and iTunes server built in, as well as a media collector that sucks in media from all your regular machines on the network into one place on the server. All of this stuff is just improved.

What it does even better now

The greatest group of improvements is how the EX495 now works with Macs. Time Machine functionality was there before, but ran into problems when your Mac went down and you tried to do a fresh restore directly off the network. Now you get a separate disc to use so you can treat the Time Machine backup on the server as a standard Time Machine backup for restores.

But the most important feature on a day-to-day basis is the fact that the Home Server console works natively on Macs — even though it’s just a remote desktop connection to the server anyway. You can now do on your Mac all the management actions you could on the PC, like setup new users, update your Home Server, perform diagnostics or configure video conversions.

Then there is the added ability to do media collecting on Macs, basically sucking off any videos or music you’ve accumulated into one network-accessible place so other machines can access it. It beats having to remember to manually place those things on the server yourself.

Of course, Macs can also access the web interface for Home Server management just like PCs can.

More power, more storage and better processing

Shoving a Dual Core 2.5GHz or a 2.2GHz Celeron processor and 2GB of RAM on these machines might seem like overkill for something that’s just used to hold stuff and stream it around the network, but HP puts that to good use.

In our tests, the EX495 was able to convert a DVD movie into a full resolution h.264 and a phone-streamable 300MB movie in about an hour and a half, give or take. Very useful for not sucking up your main machine’s horsepower to convert videos when you can just vomit them onto the network and have it be done by a slave machine.

The improved processor is very noticeable from just using the remote console. Clicking around to set up the photo publisher, or the media server, or adding BitTorrent plugins were much faster than the previous generation EX485 and EX487 machines. It’s not even comparable to the LX195 budget versions.

At $US700 and $US550 respectively ($899 and $599 in Australia), the MediaSmart Servers definitely aren’t cheap. If you’ve got an older version, like the 485/487 series, the improvements probably won’t be enough to warrant you spending so much for another machine that has similar functionality. If you’re new to the Windows Home Server realm, this has pretty much everything a PC or a Mac user would want to hold their data, stream their media and backup their information. [HP EX495 and HP EX490]

The kit includes a remote, 2.5-inch space for a you-provided HDD, three USB slots, Ethernet, and support for more than a few file formats. It launches, well, soon, as there’s no date and it’s currently in pre-order. [Amazon via The Gadget Site via Engadget]

While we haven’t seen Microsoft’s newest data centre, we hear that it has 700,000 square feet of space, really, really high ceilings, and 12-metre stacks of server-filled containers. Thinking about the stacks may leave me with vertigo, but thinking about the ingenuity of the design leaves me impressed: Microsoft has built something which’ll “deliver huge benefits in cost, energy efficiency and environmental sustainability”.

All those containers are plug-and-play in a way, complete with corresponding bays, and can be set up by “as few as four employees” in hours. Yes, they’ve designed it so that moving 60-ton stacks of servers requires only four people. If that’s not incredible then let’s consider that the place has a huge focus on being energy efficient: Despite the facility having a 30-megawatt power capacity, steps have been taken to make it as economical and sustainable as possible:

[T]he Chicago site employs water-side economization [which takes] advantage of cool outside air to reduce the data center’s reliance upon power-hungry chillers to produce chilled water. Air economizers introduce fresh air into the data centre, while water-side economizers use cooling towers to remove waste heat.

Basically Microsoft is cutting down energy waste, saving on labour, and being all-around economical. While the modular, server-in-a-box approach might not get the stamp of revolutionary, the way Microsoft is approaching it is something worth paying attention to because it might just be what’ll help “meet the demand for cloud computing at scale.” [Data centre Knowledge]

[Copyranter]

The prototype pictured here is intended to promote the ServersMan app, which gives iPhone users the ability to use their phone as network storage, file viewer or a mini web server. Hey, If you are not going to sell the phones or give them away, its better than leaving them in a drawer somewhere. [IT Media via DVICE]

The concept is somewhere between a personal web server and a filesharing application, technologically and conceptually. The interface is straighforward, divided into panels for each service that you choose to “host.” All of them behave in the same stupid-simple way: you start a service, whether it be photo sharing, music streaming, web hosting or straight file sharing, select a shared directory, set your privacy preferences and go.

Even at this early stage, there’s a lot of hosted content to explore, including lots of publicly streamable music, which will almost certainly cause Opera problems even though, strictly speaking, they’re not actually doing the hosting or streaming. There’s no video service for now, but Unite is extensible, meaning that anyone can design a plugin to add to the program’s default file-serving capabilities.

Opera is proud of the fact that Unite runs against the tide of most new web services, opting for client-side content hosting over cloud-based solutions—so proud, in fact, that they’re able to repeatedly, straight-facedly describe Unite as a “Web 5.0″ product, which is a bit rich considering it is just a collection of services that have been available for years, albeit never in such a simple or consolidated way. As a convenient tool for sharing large amounts of content, I see it. As a game-changer? I’m not sure.

A technical preview of Opera Unite is available for download here. [Opera]

Which brand goes best with your new home server: The popular Cohiba, or the unvarying mellowness of a Macanudo? I ask because this is the kind of question you’ll deal with once you install a Home Servidor.

Created by software developer Donavon West, the Home Servidor is a small home server that sits in the bowels of a fully functional humidor.

The case is made from cedar, and the glass lid covers a tray for more than a dozen cigars. Below that is another glass panel, which serves to protect the server’s innards from the cigar-friendly humidity and moisture provided by the humidor.

Like the case, the server itself is also custom built. There’s an Intel Atom 330 dual core processor, 2GB of memory, room for two internal SATA drives, space for two external USB drives expansions, Gigabit wired Ethernet and Windows Home Server.

Pricing begins at $US800, and that includes 1TB of storage.

But those nights on the porch, the ones where you’re sipping some single malt Scotch and puffing a stogy while the Home Servidor pumps out mild tunes into the cool evening air? Those are free. [Baltimore Sun via Born Rich]