The new PC I ordered to run Windows Home Server arrived last night, and I'm happily fiddling with it.

Despite waiting far longer than Cyberpower originally estimated to ship it, the box itself seems decent enough and booted Windows Home Server from the CD on the first try. Total cost for the box: $470 before shipping. I could have gotten it for a lot less, but I upgraded a few key items:

• Motherboard that supports 6 SATA drives
• Case that holds 6 3.5" drives
• Dual core AMD 3800+ to ensure enough horsepower when/if the box ever runs Media Center functionality concurrently
• 160GB hard drive, rather than the less expensive 80GB.

It's a bit noisy with the four case fans, but since there's a digital thermometer on the case I can experiment with disabling some of the fans while keeping the case cool enough.

Tonights task: Installing the two 500GB hard drives I purchased for less than $280 at Newegg.

I haven't yet installed the Windows Home Server client side software on my household machines. I'm holding off a few days, when a newer build should be available.