The Mirra Personal Server (MPS) looks like a pretty standard mini-tower PC. The physical setup is simple enough that a grown adult can do it (kids get this stuff - we all know that, right?). No tools are required. In fact, all you have to do is plug in the power cord, plug in the (supplied) Ethernet cable, and connect the MPS to an empty port on your broadband router. Then you turn it on. You're done!

The MPS takes a few minutes to go through it startup routine and announces it's open for business with a series of tones once the boot sequence is complete. The front of the MPS has two LEDs - one green (power) and one amber (disk activity). There's a power button between the two LEDs which I have touched exactly once to turn it on.

Physically, the only way I know the MPS is there is the low-volume fan noise it generates. Our computer work area is in our den so there's generally enough ambient noise that the fan isn't noticeable. If the TV or stereo is going I'm completely unaware of it. In the early morning hours when I do a lot of my blogging, it's a bit more pronounced.

Once the MPS is online, the next step is to install the client software (Windows only at this time but a Mac OS X client is in development according to company representatives) on each PC on your network.  The Mirra client software can be installed only on Windows 2000, Windows XP Home or Pro, and Windows Server 2003. In my home, we have two Windows XP Home laptops and my Tablet PC, all of which are usually connected via WiFi. The MPS documentation suggests that a wired connection is best and I do recommend you do your initial backup (and any restore or undelete operations down the road) with a wired connection. I have found, in almost a week of use, that the ongoing incremental backups work just fine over WiFi.

The client installation is pretty straightforward - standard Windows installer stuff. Once the software is installed (the .Net Framework is required and is installed if not already present), and you’ve restarted your PC, you enter the license key and the MPS is detected. Once a connection is established, a Setup Wizard walks you through the process of naming and registering your server, setting a privacy password for your personal account, creating a Mirra web account (more on this shortly), and selecting folders to be backed up. A complete user guide and a document entitled “30 minute guide to using Mirra” are installed (PDF) as well.

The installation on my Tablet PC ran flawlessly and the only glitch I’ve encountered occurred when attempting to set up the web account. While I still haven’t resolved why I was unable to receive the confirmation e-mail necessary to confirm the web account, this did give me an opportunity to experience the technical support Mirra offers. As part of the evaluation kit, I was provided a special number I could call for assistance but I elected to use the normal tech support e-mail to get a sense of how the company supports a typical customer.

I’m pleased to report that Mirra’s tech support is absolutely first-rate. I sent my query about the web account activation late in the evening and by mid-morning the following day, I was involved in an active and very informative dialog with Chris,  a Mirra tech support representative who diagnosed the issue and provided a workaround in about an hour. After a recent personal experience in “Dell Hell” spending hours trying to resolve a printer problem, this was very refreshing. Chris was personable, responsive, and very thorough while assisting me.

When the setup wizard got to the point of suggesting what to include in my initial backup, I was pleased to that it suggested not only the My Documents folder and Favorites folder but also detected all four of the .pst files I use in my Outlook setup. MPS has the ability to backup Outlook in real-time, while I’m using it. It can also perform incremental backups of files you have open as long as you use an NTFS formatted disk. The initial backup of about 5 GB of data took about 15 minutes.

I repeated the process with the kids’ laptops and went to sleep confident that we had a solid backup regimen in place. This is the first time, in all the years we have had a LAN in our home, that all of our PCs have had an up-to-date backup (despite my best attempts to teach my kids proper PC maintenance, they’re pretty lax about backing up their stuff).

Next: Ongoing backup and LAN file sharing with the MPS