[Review] ReBYTE, Mirra and just plain *nix

[Shadrack]

I've been wanting to write this for a long time, and have some minutes to type my thoughts on some backup systems I've tried out at work.

Mirra

In a nutshell it is super easy to setup with some major software drawbacks.

We got the 120 GB Mirra that has the following notable features:

1. Ease of setup. Just plug it it. It detected what network settings it needed and just worked.

2. Has pretty good web accessability of your data (if you want).

3. Backup software sits on the client side, which gives you an instantaneous backup of a saved file.

4. Provides multiple versions (6 or 7) so you can restore older copies if you need to.

Here are the drawbacks of the system:

1. No cheap upgrades. The only way to get additional storage on the device is to buy expensive USB 2.0 drives.

2. You HAVE to use their software or their web front to access your files. They don't provide windows shares, or anything like that. This would be nice if you would like multiple backup system communicating and mirroring files (from location to location).

3. The software is crap. It is extremely slow and crippled on features. It is a .net application and IMO .net applications are 4x slower then what they need be for what they are doing. You need at least a P3 500 to run the software, and it will seriously criple that system. Although my experience with it on faster p4 computers was a good one.

4. If you run out of space on your Mirra, it is a pain to manage reclaiming the space. It suggests, when you run out of space, that you purge your old version of files. But there is no easy way to purge ALL your files for old copies. You have to go to each file and say "purge old versions." This SUCKS!

The price for our system was about $550, which I think is totally worth it if it weren't for the craptastic software that came with it. A lot of people would say that is steep, but considering it didn't take me but an hour to setup and have a backup routine in the works I say it is worth it. Time IS money, after all.

ReBYTE

For what this is, I'm not sure why it carries such a high price tag, except for ease of install. We got our ReBYTE chip for $150, and now it is more like $180. Features:

1. Easy to install and you can turn just about any old system into a ReBYTE (which means upgrades aren't as big of an issue as it is w/ the Mirra).

2. Nice web front end.

3. ReSAVE (a free add-on package) can be setup to backup windows shares at what ever time interval you want.

4. Supports RAID-1 and RAID-5 even if you don't have a RAID adapter.

5. You can make your backup files accessable through the WWW. I never really played with this feature.

6. Everything is accessable through windows shares.

Drawbacks:

1. It demands RAID-1 or RAID-5. I really didn't want to have a mirror between the two 120GB hard disks, i'd rather have the 240GB of storage since most of my computers are on RAID-1 anyway and I saw this as just overkill. The system wouldn't let me do it.

2. I tried out RAID-5 with 3 120GB hard drives (giving a 240GB capacity), and the entire system ran extremely slow w/ this option. My test system was a Celron 1.3GHz.

3. I think the price is expensive considering its just a stripted version of Linux running Samba, rsync, and crontab.

This little add-on chip is too expensive for the amount of time it takes to setup and what is actually running on it.

Linux

You can setup a Linux system to work just like ReBYTE w/ out the expense. It will take more time, but IMO it is worth learning Linux for a lot of other reasons besides this one.

Features:

1. Highly flexable. You can make a backup system to suit your needs. The simplist that I've come up with is one that runs Samba (to have windows shares and for the CIFS and SMBFS support to access windows shares), rsync (a smart transfer protocol that will cut down on your network traffic) and crontab (to schedule you backup jobs).

Drawbacks:

1. Steep learning curve

2. No web interface or WWW access of your files. I'm sure you can create, or find, one though.

OpenBSD

I played around with setting up this as a backup server too. I never could get it to work like my Linux box because it doesn't have smbfs or cifs kernel support. Translation: you can't (exactly) mount windows shares the same way you would in Linux. You can use sharity light, but I always had problems with rsync crashing on large transfers over a sharity light share. Sharity light allows you to mount windows shares, but i think it still has bugs or something.

What OpenBSD is good for is NAS (network attatched storage). With a single floppy and a good internet connection you can (well I can) setup rather quickly:

Samba (for Windows Shares)

Rsync Server (for synchronization w/ my Linux box)

This worked out great and I didn't think it was too hard to setup. If you can schedule your windows computers to rsync to the BSD box's Rsync Server, this could be a pretty good automated backup scheme. But i never dived into it.

Edited June 11, 2004 by nic