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Personal File Server For The Masses

Posted by timothy on from the that's-a-lot-per-gb dept.

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."

10 of 263 comments (clear)

  1. That's odd by mrpuffypants · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So the bigwig at the company used to work for apple but the site says that his new appliance will only work with a WinXP machine?

    What's that about?

  2. i must be missing something... by mOoZik · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...like the point of this? It's 400, pretty big in size, and all it does is store files? For 400, you could get a bare-bones system running Red Hat or something and shove in near half a terrabyte. Or just get tape backups and save a gazillion dollars. I think it's too soon to feature a product like this, as the people aren't ready and the entreprise can surely spend the money more wisely.

    --
    A blog like any other.
  3. They're late to the game by cgthayer · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I can already buy a linux box from martian.com (the netdrive) which includes the same features plus:
    • It's linux and I can muck around.
    • It's got WiFi.
    • Setup to handle printing for my home net.
    Been there done this. There must be dozens of these kind of devices on the market already.
    --
    /charles
  4. a little behind, perhaps? by penguin7of9 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They seem to be a little behind: seen today at my local computer store: 160G, Ethernet and USB2.0, SMB file server, $289. It's about the same size as your regular desktop disk enclosure. Don't remember the brand name, however. Didn't do NFS.

  5. The service is the killer app by poptones · · Score: 4, Interesting
    that's the thing. There are several brain dead linux server installs. I haven't looked but it wouldn't surprise me if there were even a knoppix based CD-booting server distro out now.

    The thing is, I doubt most folks have the skills to cobble together the box itself. And many who do simply don't have the time or desire to screw with it - especially when 120GB of online storage is $400. You or I wouldn't buy this, but we're not the market - and 400 bucks is pretty good price when you consider most folks would end up paying $200 just to get a 120GB drive installed in their existing machine, or even a $399 e-machine.

    But the "Inspiri" service is the killer app. Because you can run a stateful firewall and still get your files from a relatively secure home network by authenticating through their service. If the system works as advertised, that's a really nice feature. No need to configure "pinholes" or setup a DMZ on the home network or even know what any of that crap means. All they need now is a "matching" firewall appliance and they got a potentially killer business model: protecting home networks against intrusion while allowing plug and play telepresence.

    And if they would just market it in Hong Kong and Japan and plug up all those leaky high speed home lines they might actually make the internet a better place. Very nice.

  6. It's all about the source code.... by Jeremy+Allison+-+Sam · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If they're using Linux, they need to make sure the source code is available under GPL terms. I hope that's the case - has anyone bought one and does it include source code or a written offer for source code ?

    I'm on HP's Open Source review board, and one of the things we make damn sure of before shipping any HP product with GPL code in it is that the product includes source code or an offer for the customer to get it.

    That's the really important thing all these embedded Linux using compaies need to understand.

    Jeremy Allison,
    Samba Team.

    1. Re:It's all about the source code.... by WaKall · · Score: 3, Interesting

      IANAL, but I think you're misinterpreting this. If I sell a box running a linux kernel plus my own binary, which was compiled with gcc and uses libc, I do NOT have to distribute source code to my binary.

      Now, if I had rolled my own kernel, then I would have to release source for those changes. But so long as I use something stock, it's no big deal.

      After all, how many companies sell proprietary software for Linux? Oracle, IBM, Tibco, Mathematica. Enough that we've all heard of them and know that they make money doing it. You DO NOT have to GPL your code just because it runs on linux. You have to GPL your changes to GPL code though - which is why most black-box vendors will NOT alter the kernel or GPL'ed libraries at all. It makes their job tougher, as they don't have the flexibility to alter/strip down the low level pieces, but they don't help out their competitors either.

    2. Re:It's all about the source code.... by Jeremy+Allison+-+Sam · · Score: 4, Interesting

      INAL either, but I talk to them a lot. It's different when you ship a linux distribution. Selling proprietary software for linux isn't the same. But when you ship the Linux kernel, modified or not, you need to obey the GPL and provide source code.

      Jeremy Allison,
      Samba Team.

  7. Re:Not needed by isorox · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So a "bajillion" is arround 2000?

    CD's are not good for backing up - if you have a 100GB hard drive you need arround 150CDs. Lets say you can burn a CD in 5 minutes (allowing time for coasters), that takes 12 hours of your time, cost arround $50 for the CD's, and at $20 an hour $240 for your time. That 100GB file server starts looking more tempting.

    Of course if you're going for a file server, you should be going for a fast box with gigE, booting off a CD into RAM, and 8 200GB or 300GB hard drives, giving you between 1.5 and 2.5TB of readilly available storage, should cost more then $3000 even with a top of the line processer and a gig of ram.

    Obviously HDD's crash, so have them as a raid array - Still get 1.2TB of data on there, for $2.50 a gig. More expensive then DVDR or CD, but more convienent, and a lot cooler when you can answer "how much disk space you got" with terrabytes.

  8. Doesn't anyone do market research anymore? by zaqattack911 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ok "the masses" to me means people who aren't overly computer literate, but are interested in transporting data from home to work or wherever.

    As for backup, usually that is handled automatically at work. At home maybe all they would need to do is backup documents and email.. which will fit on a cd. And besides, relying on one 120gb HD as a backup makes no sense. If you want incremental backups... it won't last long. And you need removable media to store somewhere else.

    As for the "computer saavy" person. Christ.. It'd be much cheaper for me to simply carry around an HD on it's own, open the friggin case and plug it into an IDE channel.