At least with a rack mount model you can sit it next to a receiver or home theatre kit or even next to a Blu ray player or PVR.
At Sony it appears design is more about making a fashion statement than delivering a practical product as their new round VGF-HS1 VAIO home server reveals. Their round VAIO VGX-TP25E home Thetre PC got very average reviews around the world and sales were not that hot.
The battle for home servers and Gateways has not even started and when it does expect Apple and sony to go head to head along with Microsoft powered products. Sony has been trying various approaches to bridging the gap between the living room and the PC and where they believe it is some flash device that sits on a table or shelf I believe it should be a really shit hot box that is hidden from sight that allows devices such as TV's gaming machines and PC's to deliver a really exceptional consumer experience.
It has to be a must have device for every home with super fast connectivity, bucket loads of storage capability and above all a simple plug and play operating system that allows DLNA devices to be plugged directly into the server. It has to manage IP devices such as camera's and security while also delivering VOIP capability.
The VGF-HS1 home server from Sony is a bit of a worry. It has the same hockey-puck shape as the VAIO VGX-TP25E, without a lot of the computing guts that make that an expensive PC. Instead, this US$599.99 unit which will start shipping in the US next week comes with a pair of 500GB hard drives, along with three USB ports and a memory-card reader. It can stream media files to a DNLA compliant device, like—surprise, surprise—a PlayStation 3 console, and features a Gigabit Ethernet port to access your home network. Thus connected, it can perform backup duties for files on your networked PCs.
Though it's listed under home theatre PCs on Sony's site, there are no HDMI ports or anything that screams easy vision or sound connectivity. In my view this is yet another gimmick product that has slipped under Sir Howard Stringer's radar. However there is every chance that we will get a big "Kahuna" device soon from Sony that will deliver exceptional sound, vision, gaming, and PC capability for the home so lets hope because if they don't Apple will and very soon.
