Home Server was an excellent product - probably one of the best Windows backup solutions I’ve ever used. I could build a low-spec PC with a cheap case, slap a

Home Server was an excellent product - probably one of the best Windows backup solutions I’ve ever used. I could build a low-spec PC with a cheap case, slap a bunch of drives in a JBOD configuration, install the backup agent on all my machines and things just worked. Restore files from a few months ago? Go for it. Do a full-metal restore over the network? Sure, why not. It had many ahead of its time features like media streaming, health monitoring, and could act as a remote access gateway. It never failed me and was almost zero maintenance. I was very saddened when it went end of life but the writing was on the wall when the follow-up “Vail” release was announced. It essentially took away nearly everything that made the original so good - no more media sharing, JBOD support was out, and it ended up being little more than a super watered down Windows Server 2012. Literally every other backup product I’ve tried for Windows - from paid commercial offerings from Acronis and too many others to name, to the built-in File History never failed to let me down when I really needed it. File History in particular has been a constant disappointment - it’s just shockingly terrible and I have absolutely zero trust for it. It can just go for months not backing up files and never even bother to alert the user. Unacceptable.