I just received a "Mirra Personal Server" (www.mirra.com) and have been
using it on my home network for almost a week. It's been a fantastic (and
long overdue) addition to my home network and has been precisely what I've
been looking for - a way to secure and backup the critical data on my PCs
and ensure that I don't loose it due to a hard drive failure. I've also
been looking for a way to access my data from any PCs while I'm not at home.
I considered adding a file server to my home network but, despite being
somewhat of a "techy", the more I looked into this option the more I
understood that it would take time and a lot of knowledge that I don't have.
Yes I could learn how to cobble together my own Linux-based server (there
was a time when it would have been a fun project), but at this point in my
life I have more important things to spend my time on like being
with/enjoying my family. So, when I read about Mirra's out-of-the-box
Personal Server solution, I jumped on it. Here is my review:



Where to start? I guess I'll begin with a description of my current home
computer setup. I have broadband internet access via Comcast - our local
cable provider. I'm using a Linksys WRT54G router as the center of my
network's setup. Communicating through that router are; 2 Dell 8250 Desktop
PCs (one for my home office and one for my kids - both are hard wired to the
router), one Compaq laptop equipped with an Linksys WPC54 802.11g PCMCIA
card (communicates to the router wirelessly) and 2 Rio Receivers (allows me
to play my PC-based music collection on my TV Room and Living Room Stereos -
both are hard wired to the router).



How I learned about the importance of backing up: The hard way (like most
everyone else). I painstakingly ripped my entire CD collection (more than
550 CDs) onto a large (120Gig) hard drive that I purchased and added to my
office Desktop. Note: I ripped these CDs at 320KBps (i.e. large files)
because I wanted the highest sound quality possible - many will say that
this is overkill, but my rationale was that I wanted to rip these CDs only
once and put them away for good - I also wanted to keep the fidelity of my
music as close to the original as possible. I took about 3 months of
ripping (when I had time) and 56Gig of hard drive space. The big problem -
I couldn't easily back it up. I had other data on my PCs (Pictures, Video,
Documents and Data) that I backed up regularly to CD-Rs, but that option was
not feasible with 56Gig of data - I decided to live on the edge and keep my
fingers crossed. As luck (or lack thereof) would have it - after a year of
enjoying my music from my PC, the hard drive that I stored it on crashed -
big time. The hard drive was replaced under warranty, but my music was
gone - thankfully only my music was on the drive and I still had the
original copies. I was none too happy about the prospect of re-ripping my
entire collection again, but I did - this time in just over 3 weeks (my
newer ripping software and hardware could rip at 34X instead of 4X).



I had learned my lesson and installed a 2nd 120Gig hard drive to my kid's PC
and was essentially mirroring my music collection to that drive. Each time
I added an album, I had to remember to make a copy to the 2nd hard drive
(over my network). Additionally, I started to backup the data from my home
office PC and Laptop PC to this second hard drive using some backup
software. This all worked, but was a pain in the ass to configure and keep
track of.



Then along comes the Mirra Personal server - www.mirra.com. This thing looks
to be the answer to my backup headaches. Additionally, it will allow me to
access my data from any internet connected PC - or share access to any
file(s) to anyone else with an Internet connected PC. Very cool.



Deconstructing the Mirra Server:



The Mirra is essentially a compilation of off-the-shelf hardware products
combined with Mirra's backup software and Internet Mirra access service.
The hardware is an SFF (small form factor) PC based on Via's EPIA Mini-ITX
motherboard:
http://www.viavpsd.com/product/epia_...therboardId=21

and Cesetek's Mini ITX Case: http://www.casetek.com.tw/html/ck1010-1b.html



A company by the name of FIC (First International Computer) builds and
markets this combination as a "Barebones" PC called the "FIC Falcon":
http://www.fica.com/site/html/produc...C_ID=240000517
Being a Barebones system, it does not come with a hard drive, memory or
optical drive. They sell on the Internet for $150 - $200



Reviews of this FIC Falcon can be found here:
http://www.ownt.com/technews/2003/fi...rm_factor.shtm



And here: http://www.targetpc.com/hardware/barebones/cr51/



The Mirra that I received appears to basically be a fully functional FIC
Falcon with a hard drive and memory (128MB) added by Mirra. As such, there
is still a space for an optical drive (DVD or CD ROM). The front of the
Mirra even has a standard spring door and eject button ready for an optical
drive. Mirra has put plastic slip on black caps over the rear exposed ports
(Parallel, Serial and standard PC Monitor Video out) because they are not
needed by the Mirra - You only need/use the power supply and the Ethernet
port. There are also 3 audio jacks, an S-video out, a Composite video out
jack and 2 USB ports in plain view. However, Mirra chose to cover the PS2
Keyboard and Mouse ports behind a very thin plastic panel sticker that
surrounds/labels the other ports - they're still there though and can be
easily accessed by cutting holes in the plastic panel sticker. Bottom
line - should you decide to "repurpose" your Mirra, you have a fully
functional Small Form Factor PC based on Via's Mini-ITX motherboard - very
cool. Additionally, if you read the reviews of the FIC Falcon, it appears
that your Mirra can be used as a DVD/CD Player (an expensive one albeit)
with just an optical drive (no hard drive or memory needed). The CD/DVD
software player is embedded in the FIC Falcon's BIOS and enabled through the
BIOS (assuming Mirra has not modified the BIOS).



I wanted to crack open my Mirra and poke around a bit more, but Mirra has
affixed a warranty sticker and I have not yet decided if I want to void my
warranty. My Mirra is the 80Gig version but I'm betting that I could put a
larger hard drive into the Mirra by simply booting one of my desktop PCs
into linux, connecting the Mirra drive and my new drive to the IDE cables
and using the "dd" command copy the Mirra's image over to the new/larger
drive - install the new drive into the Mirra and voila - more space (just a
guess).



As of this writing, you can only buy a Mirra on-line or at 10 select Best
Buy stores. From the press releases on Mirra's web site, it sounds like
broader retail distribution will be available in early 2004. I bought my
Mirra on-line at Mirra's web site. Mirra is definitely in "early
stage/start-up" mode - they're using Yahoo's standard ecommerce
checkout/transaction engine to conduct business online. Kind of minor
league, but I guess it works in a pinch.



As for receiving and setting up the Mirra: It came nicely packaged with a
plastic handle coming out of the top of the box. The package includes the
Mirra, an Ethernet cable, a diagnostics cable (probably used during a
support call for trouble shooting purposes), a power cable, the CD ROM
w/software and various documentation. Mirra also included a Mirra T-Shirt
for "early Mirra Pioneers" - a nice touch.



Here's the best thing about this device - I had it up and running in 10
minutes - literally. I plugged in the power supply and Ethernet port into
my router, powered up the Mirra and installed the software on my Desktop PC.
The client software has a very small footprint - 5MB. The install routine
is fantastic. Mirra made it exceptionally easy to install, register and
setup the Mirra. There is constant feedback from the notification area
(lower right portion of the typical XP desktop) during the installation as
Mirra guides you through the very simple setup process - nicely done Mirra!
After 10 minutes I was done - as in walk away and relax - it was great.
Once off and running, Mirra's actual backup of my files was on the slow
side - Mirra says to expect 30 seconds per Gigabyte (I read somewhere that
future updates will speed the process up a bit). I backed up 60 Gig of
data - it therefore probably took around 30hours. After that though, it's
fast and simple - once the initial backup is complete Mirra makes
incremental backups only for files that have been added or changed.



As for remote file access: From my office I was able to log into my Mirra
via Mirra's web site, access/download any of the files on my Mirra and use
them (great for getting access to my MP3s from work). Additionally, I have
setup several relatives in my Mirra address book and given them access to
several files that contain pictures that they wanted to see. They were able
to go to Mirra's web site log in and gain access to the files that I gave
them permission to view - awesome.



Overall, this is a fantastic device and should provide server-based backup
and internet access to personal data for "the rest of us".



Pros: 1) Ease, Ease, Ease. 2) It's set and forget at its very best. 3)
Mirra can push updated/upgrades out to your Mirra as they develop cool new
features. 4) Did I mention that this thing is dirt simple J



Cons: 1) The Mirra server is a bit on the noisy side - not a issue for me as
my Mirra is in my basement. 2) Slow on initial backup - thankfully a one
time thing. 3) When I'm remote (at work) I can't upload files back onto the
Mirra server - hopefully this will be part of a future upgrade. 4) You can't
treat the Mirra as a hard drive on your network and simply drag/drop files
to/from it - rather, you need to use Mirra's client software to backup files
to and restore files from the Mirra - not a must have, but it would be nice!



Finally, to all of you lining up to reply and let everyone know that you
could build the same thing for less money using an old PC, some spare parts
and Linux: That's really great - this product was NOT made for you - we all
know someone like you and we understand that there are people out there that
are at a technical level above the general public. For people like me, this
is a fantastic solution and well worth the $400 I paid. If you think about
it, it's a pretty great deal - if I built this myself, using the same parts,
I'd spend $250 - $300 on the hardware alone. For an extra $100 - $150 I get
an awesome/easy data backup solution and a remote access service that allows
me to access my files over the internet. At the end of the day you have to
ask yourself: How much is my data really worth? The Mirra is a godsend and
a deal!



Feel free to respond to me directly - my actual email address is at
hotmail - not "nospam"

As an addendum - it should be noted that the FIC Falcon (which as I pointed
out is used as the hardware foundation for the Mirra Personal Server) comes
in 2 flavors - the CR51 and the newer CR53. My Mirra is a built on the CR51
which is kind of a bummer because it's based on VIA's older EPIA motherboard
which
only supports USB 1.1 and comes equiped with a slower (933MHz processor) and
a slower memory architecture (168Pin EDO memory). The CR53 is based on the
EPIA "M" motherboard which comes with a 1GHz processor, USB 2.0 and PC2100
memory architecture.

Why point out this difference? Mirra might have you beleive that the Mirra
Personal Server's specs are based on the CR53 - Why? The Mirra's that are
reviewed in the press are CR53 machines - see these 2 reviews (hint: look
closely at the port configuration/layout of the back of the Mirra in the
ExtremeTech review - it's an VIA EPIA M motherboard).

Rear Shot from ExtemeTech Review:
http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/...i=51399,00.jpg

ExtreTech Review:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...1407181,00.asp

CRN Reviw (mentions USB 2.0)
http://crn.channelsupersearch.com/news/crn/44582.asp

If you then look at the user documentation or other rear shots provided on
the Mirra web site, you can see a different config - the standard (older)
EPIA motherboard from the CR53 models.

Was I just unlucky or is Mirra only sending the higher octane machines to
the press?

Hmmmm. Still a cool little device - I'm disapointed I did not get the same
machine that was described in the Press Reviews.

"-P-" <scansoft (AT) nospam (DOT) com> wrote