Well…. no one can ever claim our home isn’t “connected”. While we have been a fairly up-to-speed home, with regards to technology, I decided it was time to buy a true server for the house. I had built one earlier in 2011, but had a hard drive fail, had a few glitches, and decided it was time to get on my game, and do it right. In comes the Hewlett-Packard Proliant N40L. A true server, in every sense of the word, with 4 available quick connect bays, and a design that is small, unobtrusive and a reliable history. While they are not necessarily expensive, they’re also not cheap – especially when you consider, you’re spending money on a system that you won’t use as you would a desktop or laptop. It’s going to be a situation of “set it, and forget it”. So, I’ve been waiting for the right deal to come along, and finally Newegg.com had it on sale, and offered additional RAM to go with it. Time to pounce.

Got the device, installed the additional RAM and installed Windows Home Server 2011. I won’t go into the boring details, or the speedbumps I encountered, but suffice it to say… it was not just a “set it, and forget it” scenario. However, some quality time spent on it proved fruitful. The device will now back up all laptops in the house nightly (unattended), providing not only a resource for restoring certain data, but a complete restore should one of them go completely south. The device will also serve up all media – music, video and photos are available to nearly every single device in our house.

The server is completely manageable from any device to which it is connected (wired or wireless). This includes every laptop in the house, as well as desktop. Tablet connection is soon coming! With “Remote Web Acess”, I can also administer the server away from the home, using any device connected to the Internet….. including my Windows Phone. Just how cool is that?

Serving up media, for me, is at the heart of all of this. Anyone that knows me, knows I want music everywhere. And so, in this house, it’s everywhere – inside AND outside…. and it’s all streamed from one server! Whether you’re in the den, the kitchen, the garage, or outside on the patio enjoying a nice summer evening, I can serve up music from my main collection housed on this server. Even our DirecTV DVR is connected, and can serve up homemade videos to the TV in the den flatscreen. Playlists have been created to service the mood of the moment. Want smooth jazz? I have a playlist for it. Want party rock? There’s a playlist for that, too. Whatever you want, you can have it. There’s also internet radio (ex. Pandora, I-heart-radio, etc.) available to every device, too.

With Spring just around the corner, I’m glad I took the time, bit the bullet, and took our home network setup to the next level. I want to be outside enjoying the sun, my friends, and not inside fiddling with servers, hard drives or media players.

I think we’re set!