Review: Mirra Personal Server

Mirra's Personal Server is a dedicated application server designed specifically for the small business or small office. The device, which comes in 80-, 120-, and 250-gigabyte models, is intended to provide automatic file backup, file sharing, remote access to files, and file synchronization -- functions that often prove difficult for offices without resident technical staff.

Simple Setup
The Mirra Server is a PC, but the only cables you connect to it are the power cable and the Ethernet connection, which keeps the system simple to set up. I attached both cables and pushed the power button. After a few seconds, my Mirra produced a few happy chirping sounds indicating it was online and ready to do its work.

The Mirra client application needs to be installed on any local PCs that will be accessing the Mirra. The client software supports only the more recent versions of Microsoft Windows -- Windows XP (both Home and Professional), Windows 2000 (Pro and Server edition), and Windows 2003 Server -- so be sure the computers you intend to connect are running one of these operating systems.

Setting up the Mirra client software is simple. A wizard steps you through the process of identifying the folders you want to back up. Keep in mind that Mirra's backup is not a full system backup, and is not intended to be used for disaster recovery purposes. It's meant to save your important files to a safe place.

On my desktop PC, I selected the entire My Documents folder and my Outlook data file (Outlook.pst) since that's where the majority of my data lives. I chose the Outlook file as a good test since I almost never close that program, meaning its data file is skipped over by most backup applications.Mirra scanned my selected folders and began the process of copying my files to its drive. It successfully copied not only all the files in the My Documents folder, but also my Outlook file while Outlook was running. Mirra is able to perform this magic on Windows XP and 2003 Server, but not on Windows 2000, because it relies on Microsoft's Shadow Copy feature to save copies of active files. Shadow Copy is included in only the most recent versions of the Windows OS, which is why Mirra doesn't support older versions of Windows.

That Syncing Feeling
Once you've made a backup of your files, you can elect to share some or all of them either with users on your LAN or with remote users over the Internet. If you choose to share your files with PCs connected to your LAN, the files you share will be kept up to date. Mirra's client software constantly monitors the files you select for backup. Every time you save a file, Mirra stores it along with the seven previous versions on the Mirra server, then distributes the most recent copy to all PCs that have been selected to have copies.

This trick has been tried by many different software products, but I've always found some kind of "gotcha" in the implementation. I installed the Mirra client on my Toshiba M35 laptop and selected the same My Documents folder and the Outlook.pst file I had backed up from my desktop PC. Once my folders were copied from the Mirra to my laptop, I fired up Outlook, opened the Outlook.pst file that was being shared, and saw the same e-mail messages I had just received on my desktop.

Mirra is not Microsoft Exchange Server and isn't intended to support multiple simultaneous users of the same file. So, to check to see if the updates actually worked, I closed Outlook on my desktop machine and deleted an e-mail from the laptop Outlook session. I then closed Outlook on the laptop and opened it on my desktop, and the message was in fact deleted.

This is a huge step forward for those of us using two (or more) computers and needing the same information on all of them. The advantage is you no longer have to find a way to get your appointments, contacts, and e-mail from your desktop to your laptop every time you walk out the door with your laptop. (Just make sure you shut down your desktop PC -- or at least Outlook -- before you leave the office.) While you're on the road, you can retrieve new e-mail onto your laptop when you go online, then sync up with the Mirra (and thus your deskop) when you get back to the office.Sharing The Goods
Mirra touts its ability to share files over the Internet, and comes through on the promise. You can select from the same folders you chose to back up from your LAN-attached PCs and make them available online. (Note that online users can download, edit, and upload the document if they have proper permissions, but Mirra doesn't push the most recent versions of files to them the way it does for users on the LAN.) Mirra sets up a connection from the Mirra on your LAN to users on the Internet. It does this by connecting through the www.mirra.com Web service, free to registered Mirra users.

Mirra lets you identify the people you want to share folders with by e-mail address. I selected a folder of photographs and chose "New Share," browsed for the folder I wanted to share, then typed in the e-mail address of the person I wanted to allow access to the folder. The Mirra sent an e-mail announcement to the recipient, who could either log into her existing Mirra account or create a new free account.

When the user logs in, she has live access to the shared folder. Users can upload and download files to and from the shared folders based on the permissions assigned to them when the folders were set up to be shared. I found there was plenty of granular control over which users had which permissions as long as you're content with sharing folders rather than individual files.

Security is controlled by email address and password, and redirected through the Mirra Web service, so there is no direct connection to your Mirra. This seems to provide decent security; even if one user's password is hacked, only the files that user has access to are vulnerable. And even if they are deleted, Mirra keeps backups that can be restored on demand. For added security, the data stream between the Mirra server, the Mirra Web service, and the Internet user is protected by 128-bit SSL encryption.

What I Like About You
The Mirra server is easy to set up, and the client software takes barely any CPU cycles, even during the initial backup process. Setting up shares and permissions is simple. Web access is quick and responsive, but Mirra's Web access page devotes more space to advertising Mirra than I would like. The combination of features Mirra delivers makes a compelling case for the product. Synchronizing Outlook on multiple PCs may just be enough justification to install your own Mirra.0