ASUS TS mini Home Server

Model: ASUS TS mini Home Server
Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer, Inc

ASUSTeK Computer is no stranger to the computer industry. A favorite among computer enthusiasts, this Taiwanese company is recognized as one of the world's leading manufacturers of computer components. While best known for their motherboards and graphics cards, ASUS offers a wide range of products for the consumer and enterprise markets. Along with notebook and desktop computers, their product lineup includes high-end workstations as well as both tower and rack-mount servers.

With the TS mini, ASUS has also made its presence known in the home server market. Based on the Windows Home Server platform, the TS mini is powered by a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 processor and is available with up to 2GB of DDR2 memory. The server has room for two internal 3.5" hard drives and sports six USB 2.0 ports as well as two eSATA ports for further expansion. Like other Windows Home Servers, the TS mini is capable of backing up as many as 10 computers and  supports features like folder duplication, remote access and media streaming. ASUS has added to these capabilities by including add-ins for ASWM, Xtor Manager and their WebStorage service.

For this review, ASUS sent us the 500GB version of the TS mini. Unlike the 1TB and 2TB versions, this one comes with only 1GB of memory.

Needless to say, this is only a taste of what ASUS's home server has to offer. To give you an idea of what to expect, we'll take an in-depth look at the TS mini's features and then put it through its paces to see how it performs. Does ASUS's new home server have what it takes? Keep reading as we find out.