So, what exactly does £99.99 buy you! Quite a lot. The Microserver is powered by an AMD N54L CPU clocked at 2.2GHz, has 2GB of DDR3 RAM plus a 250GB 7200 rpm SATA hard drive. That might not sound like a particularly high specification, but performance-wise the Microservers punch well above their weight. There are four drive bays; stuff it with 2TB drives and you've 8TB storage in the box. The drives can be configured as RAID 0 (for performance) or RAID 1 (for reliability), although the RAID controller is not as sophisticated as a dedicated controller card. There are numerous USB ports, for the connection of external drives for even more capacity or for backups. There is no DVD drive; it is relatively straightforward to add one, although it does necessitate opening up the box. Memory can be expanded to 8GB (and it supports ECC RAM, too), although again it is necessary to open it up.
To use it as a server, it is necessary to install an operating system. The slight problem here is that a full version of the Windows Server software costs considerably more than the Microserver itself! Fortunately, there are some low cost alternatives available. A popular choice is Windows Home Server 2011; this is a sort of cut-down version of Windows Server 2008 that will handle up to 10 computers/users and is available for less than £40 onlime. Another alternative is ordinary Windows 8, still available for £50-£80 in some places. Although this is really a desktop operating system, the built-in Homegroup networking services are fine for the home or very small business. Finally, there is even a totally free operating system called FreeNAS; this turns a computer into a very capable NAS box along the lines of what Synology, QNAP, Buffalo etc sell. It can even run from a USB memory stick, and there is space for one inside the Microserver. However, this is very much an option for the enthusiast rather than the man or woman in the street.