The San Jose Mercury News yesterday had this opinion column on the new Mirra personal backup server. For $399 you get a file server with an 80G disk that, according to the “review” is incredibly easy to setup. There’s an app you must install on your target machines and then click to select the files you want backed up. Mirra backs those files up and constantly monitors them for changes, backing up the changes once you’ve made them. You can access the files stored there through the installed app and you can make them available over the Internet, again through the app. A good rundown of its features is available on the Mirra site. Langberg’s opinion column seems to be more of an “oh boy, someone’s finally done it!” rah-rah than a serious review. He doesn’t seem to view the need for the app, for instance, as a stumbling block, maybe because Mirra’s promised to remove the need for it in the future. I’m also not too sure that sharing the files over the Internet is actually a good selling point. Opening up your firewall and exposing your most valuable files isn’t something that should be taken lightly, SSL and authentication notwithstanding.