Microsoft looking to bring servers into the home to aid in storage of personal items.

It may not be the best part of computing, but storage is becoming increasingly critical as masses of photo, music and video files accumulate. Microsoft thinks it’s time families had help storing it all with computer servers intended for the home.

Powered by Microsoft’s Windows Home Server software, Hewlett-Packard’s MediaSmart Server is one of the first such servers. It plugs into a home network router and comes with either 500 gigabytes ($599) or 1 terabyte ($749) of hard disk storage, with room for terabytes more.

The software is intended to make it a snap to schedule automatic backups of the computers on the network, and it lets owners share photos and files directly from the machine — a feature that includes Internet transmission. Additional software allows families to monitor home security cameras and create mini-Web sites and blogs that reside on the server.

Windows Home Servers cannot share programs, however, and can still be somewhat complicated to set up (one trial run required a call to tech support). Maybe even Microsoft can’t make mass storage simple.

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