Andy Piper left an interesting comment on my previous File Server post:
Interesting discussion. Appreciate that this is mostly aimed at the enterprise.
So, how successful do you think the new Windows Home Server product will be? And should we all just use Amazon S3 instead?
I’ve run a Linux server at home for many years, but in terms of file storage I just can’t get myself to move over to a server-based model at home. The Linux box handles e-mail, an Apache server, DNS etc. and there are some shares on there, but I just don’t use them very much.
This got me thinking about the influence of the consumer experience on the file server, and the chance that other technologies will replace a significant part of these capabilities.
I’m unlikely to have SharePoint (or any other similar technology) at home so will use some form of file service, either local or server based.
We are increasingly finding ourselves in a position where the consumer experience drives the enterprise experience. So if the SharePoint type of technology is going to be successful it needs to answer questions within the enterprise space that are different to the questions being asked by consumers. If the technology is answering questions for which the consumer already has a solution they are going to favour the consumer solution.
One recent example of this phenomena has been desktop search. Many consumers have installed a desktop search product on their PC at home, I have then been on the receiving end of people requesting the same on their work PC.
So how does this influence the file system?
People are dealing with far more data on their home PC than on their work PC, so why shouldn’t they just do at work what they already do at home? What’s going to make them do something different at work?
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Graham Chastney 
Excellent point about consumer products driving the enterprise. Desktop search is a great example… although again, it is something I’ve not really trained myself to use much yet, and I have it both at home and at work.
The reason I mentioned S3 is that to setup and run a home server with RAID is a bit of a hassle. No matter how easy WHS claims to make this, isn’t it simply easier to say “I just want my data stored and backed up and I don’t want to worry about managing it, powering it, or anything – so please look after it for me”? Bandwidth is growing and dropping in price. It’s just a thought. Personally, I’d still prefer to run my own server, but I’m just too wedded to having my data locally to make the leap.
Playing devil’s advocate a little here, while I’m still forming thoughts of my own 😉
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