Personal File Server For The Masses

prostoalex writes "California-based Inspiri is coming to the market with Mirra - a personal file-server with simple backup solutiion, remote access as well as file-sharing capabilities. The $399 device comes with 120 GB hard drive, front-mounted USB ports and Ethernet interface. There are some pictures of Mirra on the corporate Web site. The founder of Inspiri, Tim Bucher, according to the corporate documents, had an interesting career, having worked at both Apple and Microsoft, while the VP of Engineering in this company used to work as acting CEO of Apple's Newton business group."

Comments

Replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet that this can be replaced with a pentium 1 + ethernet card + Linux/BSD. It doesn't take a whole lot to be a file server.

Re:Replacement

[Phillup]

Mine works fine... dual 133Mhz Pentium classic... Tyan Mobo.

Linux OS is installed on my trusty old 1.6 Gig Maxtor hard drive (Mondo restore copy on CD... just waiting for it to die so I can put in the "big" 4 Gig drive ;-)) and a Maxtor 160 G for storage... formatted using ReiserFS.

Just set the controller to ignore the hard drive and let Linux figure it out once it boots.

Hardest part was turning off the controller in the BIOS. (not hard)

Get a bigger hard drive

[ricembr]

Save a little money. Just get a 120 GB IDE hard drive and an old box with Linux.

Re:Get a bigger hard drive

[AnyoneEB]

In case you hadn't noticed, "the masses" don't tend to throw parts together and configure Linux installs.

Yes....but when did CD's have ethernet jacks?

[Phoenixhunter]

It's all about the ethernet...

Just for clarification

[iomud]

Is this an Ad or an article?

$400?

[dildatron]

$400 is a bit steep. I just built a computer for one of my relatives. Pentium 4 Celery, 1.7GHz, 256MB DDR RAM, 30G hard drive, keyboard, optical mouse, nice small form factor IWILL case. Total cost was $369 with shipping from newegg.com. A larger hard drive would not have cost much more, and I got a whole computer minus monitor.

So the question is, how much will people pay for a convenience? It just seems most people interested in having their own file server would be the crowd of people that would just make their own.

Your average home user would probably not need or even know exactly what a fileserver/backup solution would do for them.

Still though, we will see what happens. I think at $300 it would be a much more attractive solution.

Re:i must be missing something...

[EddyMerckx]

But its not for someone who could set up a Linux box.

Its for people who click on any atachment in Outlook and corrupt their machine on a regular basis.

People like my dad and grandmother.

Suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

This is fine, but I think what many people would like to see is a relatively inexpensive, small, fileserver that does RAID mirroring, and has low power consumption.

Why?

[joel8x]

The Mirra appliance is expandable through its four USB 1.1 ports, and Ispiri plans to release hard disks and other devices for the server in 2004, Mandeberg says.

The image make it look like the size of a tower which could take internal IDE hard drives. It seems like the wording of this may be misleading, because who in their right mind would use a USB 1.1 external hard drive on a file server? If that is the case, who are they marketing this too?

For the masses?

[flogger]

I'm not sure what this phrase means. "Something for the masses" is usually a euphamism for "mass produced item sold at walmart stores that takes no intelligence to use."

Now computers and extra equipment usally are not for the masses if they requirme more thought than pointing and clicking. When you start mentioning things like (from the article:) Mirra comprises three pieces: hardware, software, and service, you start start losing the masses. If I were to say this to my grandmother, mother, sister, brother, father, etc they would all think I was talking about some slothing line and laundry service.

For those of use that are not part of the masses and know how to install an operating system, There are may great linux distros that do everything that is offered in the article for much cheaper. Look at E-Smith for a great solution for home/office/small business, or even school districts. It's free for the developer release and it even runs on those old Pentium 233 machines that are laying around.

/plug

Re:Not needed

[gl4ss]

and scramble for those cd's then too when you need something from them?

that said, it's a ridiculous price for 120gb and 120gb isn't that much at all anyways.

but i'd very much rather have few tb's of hd space that could fit all my shit than having a stack of cd's with a list of what's in them.

The point...

[djrogers]

You're all asking what the point of this is. Talking about how you could build a cheaper, better, faster one with a bigger pen^H^H^H hard drive in it, but you've missed the point. This isn't for YOU, it's for your neighbor. Or your uncle, your Mom, or anyone else who DOESN'T have a closet full of overclocked Celeron 366 motherboards, and a working knowledge of Linux. It's also for the people who don't have static IP addresses at home, but want to access their backed up files from anywhere:

Mirra's installation assumes that its location has an "always on" broadband connection, and uses it to reach out and touch the Ispiri corporate service. Most of the time, this is a simple "ping" every couple of seconds, although it also provides an opportunity for unattended software updates and fixes. If an off-site user has properly authenticated to the Mirra service at the Ispiri host, and requests a file, the service makes the request when the Mirra next touches base. The advantage of this approach is that the connection is initiated by the Mirra server inside the user's router or firewall.

Sounds like a handy little box to me if it does all it says: Automatic background backups Automatic background file synchronization Remote access that works behind a NAT-box Expandable I'm not gonna buy one, mostly because I don't need one, but when my Dad asks me about backing up his important info I just might tell him to get one....

Re:The point...

[smallpaul]

You are totally right. Also think about the long-term direction. This box will get smaller and smaller as parts shrink, whereas desktop PCs stay roughly the same size because of the need to add cards and expansion devices. This box will also get cheaper and cheaper over time as the establish some volume.

Re:The service is the killer app

[lakeland]

Actually, I would be tempted. A secure, reliable backup 'appliance' would be pretty conveniant. Sure, I could save money by putting it together myself but not much, and while the end result would be more flexible, it would take a lot more time, and be less reliable.

If I went second hand I'd have to go to about 500MHz in order for the MB to support 120GB properly. That would cost say $200 for the machine (cheaper if I shopped around, but I'm busy), and $100 for the new drive. So I save $100, and get a louder, clunkier and less reliable server.

If I went new then the mini-itx would be hard to squeeze under $400 with a 120GB drive, and that excludes installation. $75 case, $100 MB+CPU, $50 RAM, $100 drive, $50 CD (RW) for installation and offline backup.

Either way, I'd have to install an OS on it (knx-hdinstall probably). BSD would be better, but I'm lazy :-). Then I'd have to configure IP tables, install coda/NFS/whatever. etc, etc, etc. Lotsa work.

Of course, if your needs go beyond just a backup appliance, then the extra flexability of the ITX or xbox approach has got to make it the best option.

Re:Painful lesson on MaxAttach 3000,

[prizog]

FreeBSD isn't licensed under the GPL.

But if you do find a product like this running GNU/Linux, and not distributing the source code, please let FSF know at license-violation@fsf.org. We've seen it before on products just like this one, and we'll get you source code.