Acer Revs Up Its easyStore Home Server

Acer's new easyStore Home Server sports a terabyte of storage, three hot-swappable drive bays for expansion, and worldwide access to media and documents.

Computer maker Acer is getting into the home server business, announcing its new easyStore Home Server is now available in the United States, targeting multi-PC households and small businesses looking to centralize backups along with media and document access. Built around an Intel Atom processor and Windows Home Server, the Aspire easyStore AH340-UA230N Home Server is designed to make it easy for home and businesses with multiple PCs to centralize their data, media, and documents, as well as access their material securely from anywhere in the world where they can get media access. And the easyStore Home Server is set up to handle a ton of data, shipping with 1 TB of storage and three empty hot-swappable drive bays (plus USB and eSATA ports) for adding more capacity.

“A significant pain point for consumers is how to consolidate and protect their digital data that’s spread among multiple devices,” said Acer America’s VP of product marketing Sumit Agnihotry, in a statement. “Aspire easyStore is the ideal solution for networking home PCs and providing round the clock data protection.”

Windows Home Server provides the capability to create an image-based backup of every Windows computer on a network daily, so user can restore an entire PC or just a single file in the event of a problem. The server also works with DLNA-compatible devices to enable music, image, and video access from televisions, PCs, and other appliances, and users can use the server to access their network and data from the road, including full access to their data and applications.

From a hardware point of view, the easyStore server touts a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor, 2 GB of RAM, gigabit Ethernet, and a compact design measuring 8.3 inches tall by 7.8 inches wide and 7.08-inches deep. The system ships with 1 TB of hard drive storage, but also sports 3 hot-swappable drive bays: pack those with 2 TB drives, and the easyStore server has 7 TB of storage capacity. The server also has five USB 2.0 ports and an eSATA port for adding additional storage or peripherals.

The Aspire easyStore AH340-UA230N Home Server is available now at prices starting at $399.99