By Francis Vale

As I get older, I think about those cheesy sci-fi movies in which the mad scientist stuffs a copy of his brain into a clone with bad makeup or a blinky-blinky Dr. Who contraption. Plug me in, Scotty, and back up my psyche in case I finally lose it. Still a B movie fantasy, for now anyway, but at least I can take some measure of comfort in using a great backup product that automatically looks after both my PC and MacOS X machines. Say hello to Seagate’s Mirra, which easily restores valuable data in case a virus or hard disc crash wipes out your photos, music, videos and all the rest of the important things that have migrated from a thumbed through reality to so many bits on a platter. Who wants to lose a lifetime of memories because of psychotic prepubescents churning out PC viruses just for kicks? (Thankfully, Macs have pretty much escaped these whackos’ notice.)

Looking at the Mirra reminds you of a small PC with a hard drive, which in fact it is, although it’s running the Open Source Linux system that has the Microsoft gang eating Rolaids for breakfast. And well it should, because the incredibly robust Linux OS makes the buggy, security hole riddled, virus-addled, patch a day Windows XP look positively amateurish. Google runs Linux on its close to 500,000 search engine computers and the company is getting near 100% up time. Now you can get the same industrial strength reliability in your home or small office right where it’s needed most, in protecting your data.

The Mirra comes in two configurations, a system with a single 320GB disk drive ($470, street) or one 500GB drive ($560, street). If you can push an on button, you can set up the Mirra. No monitor is required. Plug the Mirra into your local area network (wireless hookups not yet available), hit the power switch, and that’s it. You are now officially a Linux system admin. On your PC or Mac (OS X, only) you install no cost Mirra client software that you use to select what folders or documents you want backed up, how often, continuously or at set intervals, and the rest is automatically taken care of by the little Mirra box. You can also select folders and files that you want to share with others over your local network.

The Mirra computer is dead silent in operation and can simultaneously back up both PC and Macs. For optimal performance, Seagate suggests a maximum number of five computers hooked up to a single Mirra. But be aware the Mirra does not back up operating system files. If you lose your PC or Mac to a hard drive failure, you have to reinstall your operating system software. Once that’s done (or say you accidentally deleted some files on your machine), open the Mirra client on your computer, select the files on the Mirra server you want restored, and the rest happens with no further ado.

So what happens if the Mirra box should go ka-boom? Seagate offers three years tech support to restore your data. Seagate will also pay back and forth shipping costs of your Mirra server for data recovery at the factory. If Seagate can’t recover your Mirra files, the company will pay up to $1,000 to a third party service to recover your files. That’s belt, suspenders, and safety pin data protection.

But wait, there’s more, my Ginsu friends! The Mirra server can do secure remote file access and downloads over the Internet using your Web browser, no Mirra client required. You can also share selected folders this way, like those holding pictures with others over the Net using a secure connection (via 128-bit SSL encryption, for the curious wonks out there). To do it, you send an e-mail message to the persons you want to share files with, who are then directed to Seagate’s Mirra secure Website at http://www.mirra.com, where they enter their e-mail address and a password. The files then appear in their browser for download. They can also write files to your shared folder, if you allow it. To insure privacy, none of your transmitted data ever touches Seagate’s Web servers. Also cool, if you are traveling you can connect via your Mirra client to your Mirra server back in the home or office, and all your on-the-road files are automatically backed up. To avoid sending extra mad money back to the Mideast, you can save energy by turning the home base computers off, leaving the low-power Mirra server on and securely accessing your remote data.

Now if you’ll excuse me while I go figure out a Borg hack to Mirra my mind.