Once upon a time (back about twenty years ago), if you wanted to back up your brand-new ten megabyte hard drive you went out and bought yourself a box of floppy disks.  If you were really lucky you owned a brand-new 5.25? floppy drive capable of using disks that could hold up to 1.2 megabytes of data.

Back then, backing up a hard drive mainly involved buying a box of floppies and zipping data across disks.  As years passed, however, the size of hard drives continued rising?and the size of floppies didn?t.  The widespread move to 3.5? floppy drives in the early 90s increased storage capacity to 1.44 Meg, but by then hard drive capacity in even the average computer was well past 200 Meg.  A number of manufacturers introduced products designed to bridge the gap between floppies and hard drives.  Some, like Iomega?s Zip drive, had limited popularity, others, like the ?floptical? drives of the early 90s were expensive failures.  Capacities either tended to be too low to promote adoption over the floppy, or the drives and disks were too costly.

The introduction of the CD burner temporarily gave the edge back to removable media.  Although CD burners were slow, a typical CD could hold 600 Meg, which made backing up even multi-gig hard drives quite possible.  By the late 1990s, however, CD burners were already losing backup value.  Backing up even a 10 gigabyte hard drive took 17 CD?s and over two hours of burning time on a modest 8x burner.  Moreover, because CD?s had to be swapped by hand, it wasn?t an operation that could be easily automated.

The introduction of DVD burners hasn?t changed much.  While DVD?s hold up to eight times as much as CD-ROM?s (up to 4.8 GB), hard drive storage has increased by entire orders of magnitude.  DVD-R?s are also significantly more expensive than CD-R?s?picking up 25 of them to back up a hard drive probably isn?t the most cost-effective measure available.  Then, of course, there?s also the time needed to create the backup copy itself, the risk of damage, and the need for backups to be handled manually. 

In the meantime, the cost of hard drives has dramatically dropped.  With 120 gig drives now costing as little as $80, this puts the effective cost per gigabyte as low as sixty-six cents.  Although this is higher than the cost-per-gigabyte of a DVD-R, hard drives sustain much higher transfer rates than the slower burners and backups from drive to drive can be left unattended.

The most cost and time-effective means of backing up a hard drive for the home and small business user, therefore, may well be another hard drive.    Enter the Mirra Personal Server, a device designed to offer continuous backups, remote access, and customized file sharing across both a local network and the Internet

The Pitch: What Mirra Claims

Because Mirra?s own webpage actually gives a good run-down of the product?s claimed features, we?ve reproduced their list here in slightly paraphrased form.

Hands-Free, Continuous Backup:  Once you select a folder for backup, every time you edit or save a new file in that folder, the Mirra Personal Server instantly and safely backs it up and versions it. No CDs to burn, no tapes to load. Restore any of 8 prior versions that have been automatically stored. You can even restore files to a different Windows XP or 2000 PC. Mirra Personal Server works with files, photos, digital videos, MP3s, emails - all your data files.

Fully Secure Remote Access. Get access to your important files and photos securely anywhere, any time from any Internet-connected PC through www.mirra.com. It's completely free. Remote access to your files and photos is automatically "on" once you create an account and back up your files to your Mirra Personal Server, so there's no firewall to hassle with, no need to remember to leave your PC on.

Share Files Over the Internet with Friends and Colleagues. With the Mirra Personal Server, you can securely share important work and personal files with others outside your home office. No more bounced emails, less time wasted uploading large files. Plus, Release 1.1 features photo thumbnails so your friends can immediately see your photos by logging on to mirra.com. Sharing is free -- invite your friends and colleagues to set up private, password-protected accounts at www.mirra.com. Better yet, if you regularly share files and photos with the same people, you'll like Mirra's persistent sharing feature. Next time you save a new file to the shared folder, it's instantly available at www.mirra.com, but only to those you've granted access. Sharing is easy, secure, and under your control.

Easy to Set Up, Easier to Use. Mirra Personal Server 1.1 is even easier to set up. We take care of more network situations automatically and provide more user feedback during the install process. You can be up and running in as little time as 30 minutes. And once you set it up, you can forget it. We designed it for people who have no access to an IT professional.

Mirra has these additional features:

Security. Mirra uses an email address and password to authenticate you and anyone else you share with before making files available for download. Additionally, Mirra uses SSL for secure transport inside your home or office LAN.

Privacy. Your data is never stored on the Mirra web site. You keep your files safe on Mirra behind your firewall. Others can access your files only if you invite them to and only if they authenticate, and they can access only the specific files you want them to see. Mirra also offers optional folder password protection within your local network if more than one user is backing up to a single Mirra.

Auto-versioning. Mirra continuously backs up your files and automatically saves up to 8 versions of each file. You can restore any saved version of a file.

Activity Logs. An Activity Log and detachable task bar provide detailed feedback about activities related to backed up and shared files so you know Mirra is always working for you.

Health Checks. The Mirra web site constantly monitors the health status of your Mirra Personal Server and makes those health checks available to you locally and remotely.

Virus Protection. Mirra is not susceptible to Windows viruses. Therefore, if your computer is infected by a virus, you can use Mirra to restore previously backed up, virus-free versions of infected files.

Auto-upgradable. Your Mirra Personal Server can be automatically upgraded with new versions of Mirra software.

In a nutshell, Mirra claims to provide a continuous backup platform that?s more reliable than a floppy or CD, quicker than a tape, secure, remotely accessible (by invitation and personal login) and easy to set up and use.  That?s quite a series of claims?so let?s find out how true they are.

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• Internal, External Design (1 of 5)
• The Pitch: What Mirra Claims (2 of 5)
• Installation, Setup, Features (3 of 5)
• Remote Access (4 of 5)
• Conclusion (5 of 5)