Well in light of a recent hard drive crash in my house (sister’s computer). I needed to come up with an easy AUTOMATED backup solution. I back my stuff up between two computers. So there is no one single point of failure. But my parents and sister really didn’t have too much as far as backups. When the drive crashed and explained to my sister what happened. She wasn’t worried about school work, projects, and reports. Her first words were, “what about all my music?!”
I needed to find something that could be easy enough to walk my dad though over the phone incase he lost something or another drive crashed in the house.
I began my search. My first idea was windows scheduler to a shared drive, maybe even buy a consumer NAS from Linksys or something. Then I remember EASY. I looked into different softwares, free ones, paid ones, etc. My biggest thing was synchronization, just the ability to sync between one computer to a shared drive, NAS, etc was key.
Software solutions looked promising, and cheap, anywhere from free to $40 (per computer) and I need to backup around 5 computers. But the free ones I looked at didn’t have everything I wanted but they were close. The pay ones for the most part could handle everything I wanted to do. One of the $30 ones had a terrible interface and used window’s scheduler (ok.. that’s fine) But scheduler yells and screams if you don’t have a password set for the user it is running as. That could be dealt with, but I decided to keep looking.
Then I come across the Mirra Personal Server for Windows 2000/XP and Server 2000/2003. What a concept!!! I almost immediately fell in love with their idea.
It is a hardware/software solution that comes in 3 flavors: 80, 120, and 250 gigabyte. Just plug the Mirra Personal Server into an outlet (preferably one with battery backup) and into your home network, turn it on. Now install the included software which can be installed on every PC in your house at no extra cost. That’s about it. You’re done in about 15 minutes. The installation will ask you to optionally password protect your data. (Each computer on your network can have a different password, but only ONE password per machine. So all your folders have the same password). The default settings will backup your My Documents folder. It also has the ability to backup your Outlook data and any other directory you select including open files via XP ShadowCopy. In windows you can just right click a folder and add it the Mirra.
Ok I know you are thinking… well there are tons of backup solutions that can be setup in 15 minutes… but there are a few things that set the Mirra apart from the others I looked at. It has the ability to share and even synchronize folders with other computers on your network and you can share data with people on the WEB! I now have the My Documents folder on my desktop and my laptop 100% synchronized. Any changes I make while I am on the road will be saved and will sync back to the Mirra once I get home.
All or some (whichever you choose) of your data can be accessible via the web. You can connect to your Mirra via You enter your email address and password and through an https connection you can see all your data on your Mirra. So you are at the office and you remember you need some document on your home PC, just login and grab it real quick. You don’t even need to open ports on your firewall! You can also have your friends/family access pictures or data that you allow them to see. With the Mirra software just share a folder for the web and made the recipient your friends email address. They get an email saying there is a share available for them. They click the link in the email register a free account and that’s it.
The restore function works like a charm. It will store up to 8 previous saves of a file so you can revert back to a previously saved file. If you delete something and you view the directory where it was with the Mirra software it shows that it has been deleted. Click it and click restore. Just that simple.
I have been running this for almost a week now and love it. When I first installed it, it took a little bit of time to copy a few gigabytes. Now that it is done every time I work on a file and click save it gets save to the Mirra at the same time. It will save Outlook data every hour. There isn’t even an issue with my wireless laptop. The sync is in the background and I never notice it is doing anything unless I look at the icon in the task tray pulsing.
The only downside is maybe the cost: 80GB is $350, 120GB is $400, and the 250GB is $700. But for $400 it is well worth it in my opinion. Just think of everything it is providing: a secure easy automated backup and synchronization solution. Where all the data can be access via the web or any other computer on your network including the ability to revert back to previously saved files.
If you have a Mirra please post your comments. Or if anybody has any qestions I will answer.
Thanks for reading my long review
-Matt
p.s. I do not work for Mirra. Just a happy customer.
I needed to find something that could be easy enough to walk my dad though over the phone incase he lost something or another drive crashed in the house.
I began my search. My first idea was windows scheduler to a shared drive, maybe even buy a consumer NAS from Linksys or something. Then I remember EASY. I looked into different softwares, free ones, paid ones, etc. My biggest thing was synchronization, just the ability to sync between one computer to a shared drive, NAS, etc was key.
Software solutions looked promising, and cheap, anywhere from free to $40 (per computer) and I need to backup around 5 computers. But the free ones I looked at didn’t have everything I wanted but they were close. The pay ones for the most part could handle everything I wanted to do. One of the $30 ones had a terrible interface and used window’s scheduler (ok.. that’s fine) But scheduler yells and screams if you don’t have a password set for the user it is running as. That could be dealt with, but I decided to keep looking.
Then I come across the Mirra Personal Server for Windows 2000/XP and Server 2000/2003. What a concept!!! I almost immediately fell in love with their idea.
It is a hardware/software solution that comes in 3 flavors: 80, 120, and 250 gigabyte. Just plug the Mirra Personal Server into an outlet (preferably one with battery backup) and into your home network, turn it on. Now install the included software which can be installed on every PC in your house at no extra cost. That’s about it. You’re done in about 15 minutes. The installation will ask you to optionally password protect your data. (Each computer on your network can have a different password, but only ONE password per machine. So all your folders have the same password). The default settings will backup your My Documents folder. It also has the ability to backup your Outlook data and any other directory you select including open files via XP ShadowCopy. In windows you can just right click a folder and add it the Mirra.
Ok I know you are thinking… well there are tons of backup solutions that can be setup in 15 minutes… but there are a few things that set the Mirra apart from the others I looked at. It has the ability to share and even synchronize folders with other computers on your network and you can share data with people on the WEB! I now have the My Documents folder on my desktop and my laptop 100% synchronized. Any changes I make while I am on the road will be saved and will sync back to the Mirra once I get home.
All or some (whichever you choose) of your data can be accessible via the web. You can connect to your Mirra via You enter your email address and password and through an https connection you can see all your data on your Mirra. So you are at the office and you remember you need some document on your home PC, just login and grab it real quick. You don’t even need to open ports on your firewall! You can also have your friends/family access pictures or data that you allow them to see. With the Mirra software just share a folder for the web and made the recipient your friends email address. They get an email saying there is a share available for them. They click the link in the email register a free account and that’s it.
The restore function works like a charm. It will store up to 8 previous saves of a file so you can revert back to a previously saved file. If you delete something and you view the directory where it was with the Mirra software it shows that it has been deleted. Click it and click restore. Just that simple.
I have been running this for almost a week now and love it. When I first installed it, it took a little bit of time to copy a few gigabytes. Now that it is done every time I work on a file and click save it gets save to the Mirra at the same time. It will save Outlook data every hour. There isn’t even an issue with my wireless laptop. The sync is in the background and I never notice it is doing anything unless I look at the icon in the task tray pulsing.
The only downside is maybe the cost: 80GB is $350, 120GB is $400, and the 250GB is $700. But for $400 it is well worth it in my opinion. Just think of everything it is providing: a secure easy automated backup and synchronization solution. Where all the data can be access via the web or any other computer on your network including the ability to revert back to previously saved files.
If you have a Mirra please post your comments. Or if anybody has any qestions I will answer.
Thanks for reading my long review
-Matt
p.s. I do not work for Mirra. Just a happy customer.