Ask Paul: July 18 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Let's kick off the weekend with a diverse range of thought-provoking reader questions. This one ended up being longer than expected, so settle in.
?️ Mommy, why is there a server in the house?
spacecamel asks:

Is Synology what Windows Home Server was suppose to be when they finished it?

Conceptually, yes. Of course, that was a different time, and in the sense that everything is a nail when you're a hammer, Windows Home Server (WHS) was very much a Microsoft-centric view of what that kind of product could be in that era. Given the complexity of products like Windows Small Business Server, it's rather astonishing that Microsoft did something like this, and made it relatively simple to set up, configure, and use. But it's perhaps also not surprising, retrospectively, to see that this product line failed and had a major technical issue with Drive Extender that sunk that product's usefulness, an issue that was later paralleled with OneDrive and what became Files on Demand.

And ... it's been a while.

Looking through my archives, it occurs to me that I should probably revisit this product somehow, as I was arguably one of its more prolific users and writers. But there were hints that Microsoft was working on this product during the Longhorn era with projects like "Q" and then "Quatro," and I had good friends on that team who kept me in the loop. And then Microsoft finally announced the product in 2007, with the first devices arriving later that year. There were various Power Pack updates to the software, multiple hardware releases from HP and others, and then finally a major platform update with Windows Home Server 2011, sans Drive Extender. And from there, Microsoft dropped WHS and offered sort-of replacements through offerings like Windows Server Essentials. And then it kind of drifted off.

But looking back at the initial release, it's fair to compare what Microsoft was trying to do with what mainstream-ish NAS devices like Synology offer. It's also fair to point out that there are multiple examples of Microsoft having to choose between a computer and device for various solutions--Xbox, Media Center, etc.--and that simpler, device-type solutions always win out in the end. Simpler is always better for mainstream audiences.

Anyway, the core goals of this product were initially:

Automate PC backups for an audience that knows it should do so but rarely does because it's too difficult or time-consuming. Move backup from a PC to a household using a Connector app that would back up all the PCs in a house overnight automatically.
Content sharing through Windows Media Connect. This would work with Windows PCs and Xbox consoles.
Make the storage needed for backups and content easy to add, manage, and use.
Remote access so you can get to the content on the server from anywhere using a Windows Live Domains-provided domain.

This is pretty much what a NAS does today. It's a simpler platform, I guess. It uses...