Comments on: Mediaroom Personal Server, available Dec 29

By: Outdated

Outdated — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:05:22 +0000

I hope I ain’t bringing up an old story for nothing… by any chance anybody working on this application? Need help

By: Insight

Insight — Thu, 22 May 2008 16:22:45 +0000

Here is some insight into the product you are talking about.

What it is not:
Everything that has been speculated so far. It is not a consumer product.

What it is:
Technically speaking its not a product at all. It is an installer tool wrapped around the Mediaroom product that will preform an install on a single machine in an automated fashion to allow individuals in the vidoe eco-system a platform for testing and developing against. Its that simple.

By: John F. Jackson

John F. Jackson — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 10:31:02 +0000

Atomsk+tino

I agree with you guys that VSS + WHS is superior to TM.
My point was while Apple have packaged a neatish solution at no extra cost above the base OS, M$ are attempting to create a whole new revenue stream requiring a new machine and OS license.
Would it not be better value for a customer with a home network to simply nominate one of his VISTA PREMIUM licensed machines to act as a home server and give it the right disk configuration? WHS functionality should have been a part of Vista, not a separate product: backup is a basic OS function.

The other additional functions of WHS, like the 10 remote access sessions , are also there simply because XP and Vista’s remote access capabilities have been deliberately crippled. M$ realise that if they allow multiple remote sessions to an ordinary PC their sales of Terminal Services licenses to SMB’s will dry up. It is their prerogative of course to make the licensing rules …
… I’m just trying to highlight how much M$ cripple your PC with licensing restrictions to boost their revenues.

If you want to have (say) four user PC’s, WHS, MPS, dedicated media-centre PC and so on be my guest. With 4-core CPU’s soon to be the norm your network will be vastly and unnecessarily inefficient and expensive.

If you want to see a truly innovative design, have a look at the Google File System, indeed Google’s datacentre design. That’s the way to go. Note also the trend in virtual machine consolidation within businesses. Adding new servers is so 1990’s.

By: tino

tino — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 19:36:42 +0000

@John F. Jackson
The backup features in Vista provide the same solution you get with TimeMachine and even more. To go “back in time” you do not need an external drive in Vista and for the automatic “standard” backups you can also use a second internal drive or even CDs/DVDs.

By: meraTechSpace » Mediaroom Personal Server not so personal, a development tool for 3rd-party developers

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 18:31:20 +0000

[...] conventions has failed me miserably. A knowledgeable person has contacted me and corrected my prediction about what the Mediaroom Personal Server is. It is not, as “personal” might suggest, a consumer product. It is a development platform for [...]

By: Atomsk

Atomsk — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 08:26:47 +0000

John F. Jackson :
The fact is that Time machine is a backup solution when WHS is a backup solution, a Secured (Raid like) NAS (over the netword and online) with shadow copy, and much more with plugins (Download, Torrent, clients Antivirus gestion, automation …).

so please do not compare Time Machine with WHS …

Plus, you seems to forget that Time machine NEED a USB/FW drive to be used (when it is not needed for ShadowCopy in Vista – since it is not a backup solution). For a laptop, I guess you can say that Shadow copy is less cumbersome than TM.
Also if you have more than one Mac on your network you will need the same number in USB/FW drives or you will need to have a Mac to be the “Home Server” in the house (a separate machine or an existing one, but it will also need to be always ON, to be able to use TimeMachine on the other comuters).
And with all the problems with disk space (when with the disk pool solution of WHS it is simple to add disk space).

So I wouldn’t say that Time Machine is “better” than WHS … TM is a great backup solution with great ideas, and WHS is a great … home server.

By: RC

RC — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 20:40:25 +0000

“M$$$$$$$$”? Really?

By: John F. Jackson

John F. Jackson — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 19:07:47 +0000

The idiomatic expression, “drinking the Kool-Aid”, was originally a reference to … a group of people … who … travelled around the United States and held events called “Acid Tests”, where LSD-laced Kool-Aid was passed out to the public. Those who drank the “Kool-Aid” passed the “Acid Test”. “Drinking the Kool-Aid” in that context meant accepting the LSD drug culture, and the Pranksters’ “turned on” point of view.

By all accounts Vista’s Media Centre capabilities are now pretty decent. So if I’ve got a family home network of pc’s (say 4 copies of XP/Vista) why would I want to give M$$$$$$$$ more money for WHS and MPS and buy a new box as well? I like a solution like Apple’s Time Machine – plug in an external disk, wait a few minutes and you’re done. This influx of home server products is to be quashed as a blatant attempt to open up new revenue streams. Get Vista right please: we want a solution which maximises our value for money – not M$$$$$$$$’$ income.

Been drinking too much Kool-Aid, young master Zheng has.

By: tino

tino — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 01:01:52 +0000

Very interesting. Maybe this is the IPTV solution for the XBOX and also available for Windows? “Fiji” anyone?

By: anonymous

anonymous — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 20:40:30 +0000

maybe a personal lite version of Windows Media Services for the connected home? probably a standalone for Windows or addon to Home Server.