Home server had some issues (excuse the lack of details going for memory here) but it was corrupting the whole hard disc due to a logic error, I believe it was fixed by now. But that was the reason you didn't hear about it much and it's cheaper, plus I think it took them almost a year to fix it. If your not planing on using video output from the machine straight to a TV, but rather just pull data across the network, then it should be fine, but if your trying to use it like a DVR of sorts i agree with Swissy go to Vista with Media Center.
Either way I recommend you have at a absolute minimum 1 GB of ram in it, if not 2.