ASUS TS Mini Atom Windows Home Server Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2011-05-08
·
1,897 words · ~9 min read
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this is a pretty exciting product that just arrived this is the ASUS TS mini
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Windows Home Server so the specs are right here you can see it runs an Intel
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atom with 1 gig of RAM it has one 500 gig drive but it's available in up to 2
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terabyte configurations so this is a Windows Home Server as I just said and
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it supports up to two 3 and 1/2 in drives by default so why don't we start
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getting this box open and have a look at it the TS mini actually includes besides
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the standard Windows Home Server stuff a couple of unique assus features so oh I
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can't believe I even showed you this brown box there's actually a full proper
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retail box underneath it that actually like looks good and includes uh probably
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more information about it than the bottom one actually it doesn't it
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includes zero information about it so you can store share and secure your
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digital life now I'm a big fan of Windows Home Server I've been using
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Windows Home Server since it was in beta and I'm going to sort of cover a few of
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the awesome and unique features about it during this video but there's way way
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more it is so customizable you can really do a ton of different stuff with
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Windows Home Server software so the first thing we find in the box is your
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warranty card addressed to dearest customers we find one Ethernet cable a
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power adapter as well as a cable for that and then we have the Windows Home
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Server software installation CD so they actually give you a Windows disc that's
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pretty nice or they give you a restore CD and they also give you a recovery DVD
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oh yeah sorry this is the Windows Home Server installation disc I should know
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this this is the PC restore CD so this
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is one of the features of Windows Home Server that is really cool it backs up
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all your computers overnight every night and then what you do is if you have a
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hard drive crash completely die in one of your home PCS you basically just put
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in a new hard drive put this disc in your in your DVD drive and then you run
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the software off here it takes all the data off the Home Server dumps it onto
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the new drive and basically you'd never know that your computer was out uh
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here's a server recovery DVD this is actually for recovering the Home Server
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to factory default so you can either install manually or you can restore it
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to factory default very cool it includes some extra hard drive screws so if you
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buy your own hard drives to upgrade the TS mini you will have extra screws
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here's a quick start guide let's see what they include in their quick start guide I'm actually curious so they
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probably show you you connect it to the Ethernet uh you can't run a Home Server
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over Wireless so that's one of the things that they've uh put pointed out
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right here is that the Home Server actually has to be hardwired directly to
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your router but from there it can back up computers that are connected by wire
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or by um or by Wireless it doesn't really matter so you set up the PS mini
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now Home Server is never intended to be plugged into a monitor so you actually
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administer the Home Server from a home computer you use like a custom remote
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desktop connection to plug into it and that is how it's done here they give you
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quick instructions on how to install another hard drive on the back uh how to
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set up user accounts so with the user accounts you can set um you can set up
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to 10 user accounts and you can give certain people access to certain folders
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you can limit how much storage can be used by each user you've got all kinds
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of great control you can oh this is cool remote access you can set whether each
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user has the ability to log into the Home Server from anywhere in the world
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sorry my memory card ran out so you can also select um which users can have full
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remote access not only to the Home Server but also to any other PC in your
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house that's running a remote access capable OS like Windows XP Pro Windows
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Vista uh business and up and then
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Windows 7 Professional and up so that's a very cool feature you can set up all
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of your sharing folders this is another good one uh replication so with every
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folder on oh this isn't what it's about well either way replication is a really
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good feature with every folder on the Windows Home Server you can actually set
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whether it is going to be replicated or not so okay I can talk about this more
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later cameraman's telling me to move faster so asso special features these we
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definitely need to talk about their web-based management software that allows you to manage the Home Server
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their xtor manager that allows you to easily and directly back up synchronized
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manage folders on an external USB or esad device so not only on the internal
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drives as well as their web storage so they have a free one-year online account
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that allows you to back up files from your home server with your internet
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connection and store them online so there you go let's actually get the TS
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mini open up here and have a look at the
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this device now my home server is actually just a custom cobbled together
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uh nightmare of Machinery uh it consumes a ton of power it's really loud I locked
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it in the closet but this is meant to be more like an appliance that you could
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actually store somewhere in your house and have it not look horrible um let's
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just take the plastic off here so it's a very Sleek looking thing you've got a
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nice glossy black finish on the TS
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mini okay let's get all these Plastics
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off so you got a bunch of ventilation up here at the top then you got your power
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switch which is pretty much um all you'll ever need cuz Home Server
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basically runs itself and then I'm just going to take off this uh last piece of
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plastic here at the front okay there's your assus Home Server logo you got your
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little Windows logo you have activity LEDs for both of your individual hard
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drives here on the front as well as a network LED indicator this thing is is
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incredibly shiny I'm going to have to be careful not to show the cameraman here I
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mean look at this let's do the obligatory finger shot where you can see
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exactly how shiny the side of this thing is on the back we find a ton of extra
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storage uh inputs so with the TS mini you can have two internal hard drives
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and then you can potentially plug in another six external hard drives and
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another two eSATA hard drives so if you wanted to have something to either back
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up temporarily and then take it away or something just plug plugged in
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permanently that sits right on top of the TS mini you've got all of those
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different options at your disposal next you've got your gigabit landan Port as
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well as your DC power in and a Kensington lock just in case you're
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worried about someone stealing your Home Server now the whole point of Windows
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Home Server is data security so I'm going to
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open this up uh is data security Now what I was about to mention before when
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the cameraman so rudely interrupted me was that Windows Home Server has a
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replicating feature where you can set folder to safely back up any data on
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more than one hard drive so if you got two hard drives installed in the Home
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Server or if you have one drive installed and one plugged into the back
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you can set it so that no matter what any data that you write to the Home
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Server will be stored on at least two of those drives at any given time and it
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will actually run those backup checks multiple times daily and that is how you
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can make sure that you do not lose any data even in the event that your Home
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Server suffers uh a hard drive failure or some other kind of catastrophic crash
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and I can vouch for this personally because I've actually had several times
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I've had drives in my Home Server die and I have never once lost any of the
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data that I was using the backup uh replication software for so I have got
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this open now I don't think I'm going to go any further here to show you how to
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install a hard drive but I suspect you just kind of remove some of these screws
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and it's not too difficult so thank you for checking out my unboxing and first
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look at the ASUS TS mini and I hope that
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you've enjoyed it don't forget to subscribe to my video blog and I hope to
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be doing a followup soon with some of the uh unique assus features that come
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with this particular home server unit so the cameraman was complaining I
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didn't really take any close looks at the Home Server uh or rather not close
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looks we did lots of close looks but we didn't do kind of an overall view of it
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so he wanted to get a closer look at the vents up top and there are actually
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there must be some kind of a fan under here because uh I can feel air flow yeah
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there's two little fans down here I can feel air flow coming up from the bottom
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of the Home Server and then um you can
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actually see on the bottom here there is a ventilation and then here this is
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interesting so you've got the rubber feet here and then you've got kind of a
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cutaway so that means that even if you sit the Home Server down on a Surface
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there's still lots of room here for the air to come in under the server and then
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be pulled up through the top so that you can make sure that your hard drives as
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well as your C in there and everything else stays nice and cool and one thing
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that I probably didn't emphasize enough in the first video or in the first part
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of this video is that there is no display there's no display output the
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Home Server is accessed only by remote
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desktop connection through the Ethernet port so thank you for checking out my video on the ASUS TS Mini