This software seemed like a great idea – something that would automatically backup my files as and when they'd changed. Unfortunately the reality fell far, far short of the promise with software that functioned very poorly and support to match. Functionally this software looks very good. You create backup 'plans' in which you decide where you want the backup files to go and then select which areas you want to backup. This you can do by selecting from a set of quick picks, e.g. My Documents, My Pictures, My Music etc; or you can select directories from the file system or you can choose files by their Tag. Grand. Once you chosen the files to backup the Memeo goes off and makes an initial backup of everything you've selected. CPU usage during this process is very high, which is only to be expected really, so it's best to start this process at night or let it run over a weekend. After the initial copy has been made then Memeo runs in the System Tray and every time you save a file it gets backed up. You can also keep a number of copies of files, which is good for things like documents. So things were going well for me and my Memeo. I created a few plans to backup everything I have on disk, documents in one plan, pictures in another…. Away Memeo went merrily backing everything up. However after a couple of days I noticed that when I saved a file there was no longer a little pop up to say the file had been backed up. When I opened Memeo I found that all the backup plans had stopped working several days before. There's an active support forum for this product so I posted my problem and got a response from someone in Memeo support:
Delete all the backup plans in the file system and start again.
Now to me that doesn't sound like a solution, it sounds like a desperate measure. Not being offered any alternatives that's what I did. There are instructions in the forum for 'reactivating' a backup; but these didn't work as documented so I deleted all my backups and started again. However the same thing happened again a few days later. I reported the problem again and was given the same response; start again. Even after emailing the log files to Memeo support the response was; delete all the plans and start again. To cut a long story short here I've done this 'start again' process at least 5 times now. I've had Memeo customer support do a remote access session on my PC to try to find the problem. After that they downgraded my Memeo version from Premium to Standard; but the same thing happened. After that their suggestion was (you've guessed it) delete all the plans and start again. In addition to the problem with the plans that stopped working I've also had he following issues with the software:
- With all plans suspended (paused) the software was still using between 50% and 90% of the CPU (Intel Core 2 2.13GHz). This meant I couldn't just pause the plans, I had to quit the software altogether.
- Once I got to more that 5 plans they'd (the plans) would start disappearing off the list meaning I could no longer edit their configuration or remove the plan.
- Plans could not be reactivated once a plan had been deleted. I was a case of starting the whole thing again from scratch.
In defense of the software I will say that I'm running it on Vista Ultimate SP1. Maybe it runs fine on XP; but given the activity in the support forum and the huge FAQ list of issues I'm not convinced of this. I've given the software one star because
- Louder Voice won't let me give it 0 stars
- It deserves something for being a good idea
If I ever get the software working properly I'll update this review.
For all online backup, file sharing and storage related info, I recommend this website:
http://www.BackupReview.info
Thanks for a comprehensive review. I bought a Buffalo Terrastation and the software from Memeo was bundled with it. I’d trialed it for a month before and it seemed to work fine. I did a very crude check in terms of manually reviewing new files were moving to the archive. However one day I noticed that some files were not updated. Memeo support chastised me for not having the latest release and said this would solve the problem. I’ve upgraded and hoped that it worked. Sounds familiar to the experience reported in this site?
I’ve just finished having my notebook serviced. This is used regularly for work and so has much of my data on it. After a complete factory reinstall I hoped to use the Memeo click to restore button and leave the files to copy over night. Instead I’ve spent a day and a half trying to solve the problems. Here are some issues I’ve faced:
– Memeo support is not on-line (I’m in the Far East). When do they get on-line? They certainly don’t let you know.
– The bulletin boards don’t have any answers. The problem closest to mine (related to “Invalid rule paths”) saw that customer wait 6 days for Memeo to respond and then without any clear solution.
– I’ve tried the help solutions and no avail.
So at the point the ‘rubber hits the road’ – the point at which we count on a back up program to work – Memeo just doesn’t deliver. Great idea but why am I as a customer trying out all the work arounds, surfing the net, scratching my head and getting desperate to get my data completely restored?
I’m not super technical. However I’m not a complete IT novice. The promise of one-click restore and hassle free back-ups and the associated restore is just not happening for me right now with this software.
Thanks for the space to vent. Better luck to those that follow.
James
Hi James
Thanks for your comment and I*’m sorry to hear your tale of woe.
If you’ve not encrypted the files when they were backed up then you can restore them manually. If you go to your backup store and drill down the Memeo directory tree you’ll eventually come to a C directory. Keep going down and you’ll find your files. You can then manually restore them where you want them.
The restore feature also suffers from a lot of ‘path too long’ problems which is nonsensical if you’re restoring the files to the same location as they were before.
Hi James,
I agree fully with all your comments and I am running XP Professional on a top end Sony VAIO. This software sounds excellent on paper but does not deliver. Today I am out looking for another alternative after it crashed my computer with a Blue Screen Error (very serious). I strongly recommend that others look for an alternative.
Was using the bundled version which came with mY Buffalo Ling station. Was up and running for a couple of weeks, and seemed to be fine. One morning turned on the computer and came back about 30mins later to a message that the Hard drive is full. Not possible as it was only 15% used a couple of days before. Whilst investigating keyboard froze. Managed to delete some files and make some space. Then discovered that the memeo log files had exploded. They start out at a few kilobytes then suddenly over a few days become Mb the Gb the last one being 7Gb no wonder my drive was full. Couldn’t resolve problem so uninstalled Memeo, and nor can’t re-install it. Mind you from what I’ve been reading I think I’ll look for something else. Any suggestion?
Argh!! Having just backed up nearly 70GB of data on to my new Buffalo Drivestation, Memeo has decided to give up backing up my files. It has crashed and won’t let me access any of the programme but still takes up lots of memory. Goddammit! I thought this was good! One day and it disappoints. What a load of poo.
I guess I’m not alone. I had the same problem as others: I noticed Memeo had stopped backing up despite it reporting that backups were complete. Contacted support and got no response. Then suddenly my main drive’s free drive space plummeted to 0. Trying to stay calm, I searched for large files that had changed in the last few days and found several 5-7 GB Memeo log files. I’m surprised my computer continued to work at all. Like you, I must now find backup software I can trust.
I had the exact same problem with the log files that “John” had. Glad I found this while I was still using the “trial” version. I was actually considering paying for the full version, but after this fiasco memeooooo has got to gooooooooo!
Why would you write software that acts like a virus, and then make a trial version available?? What a bunch of macaroons!
I have a question about those huge log files memeo creates…. are they safe to delete from my PC? Or will that compromise the data that I have already moved to my external drive (and removed from my PC)?
@J: I think you need to ask Memeo support that question.
I would be very worried indeed if you’ve used Memeo to move data to your external disk and have deleted it from your PC. Don’t forget that a backup is a second copy of something. If you’ve removed it from your PC then you’ve only got one copy and no backup. External drives are pretty unreliable beasts!
We bought a MyBook to back up our image files. Suddenly there’s this memeo icon on my desktop and it says it’s a trial version, but I’ve tried uninstalling it and it starts installing instead. Yesterday, my computer started running verrrrrryyyyyyy ssssslllloooooowwww when I was online, and NOW now not even access the internet. What do I do?
I’m having the same problems as noted in the prior posts: slow running computer, warning messages about critically low internal hard drive space. Then, when I checked the files that were trnsfererd by memeo to the external hard drive, many were convedrted to .dcm files and my computer will not open them. What’s this all about?
It’s too bad Western Digital and other external hard drive manufacturers bundle software like this with the hardware….one is led to believe that the bundled software is recommended. But maybe it’s greed. Wonder what Memeo is paying them to bundle their software.
Looks like I’ll have to format the external hard drive, then delete all Memeo software from my computer and start over.
Hello,
I just stumbled across this blog and would like to offer help to anyone that is still having issues with Memeo software. I do recognize some of the issues and many have been already addressed in more recent releases of the software.
I also apologize for anyone who has reached out to Memeo support and not gotten a response. I promise that this should not ever happen and I will check on each of those cases to understand where the ball was dropped.
If anyone would like, they can contact me directly at my email address (ross@memeo.com).
Thank you,
Ross Eltherington
Memeo Inc.
Interesing article, I was in exactly the same boat, had serious problems with Memeo that was bundled with a Buffalo.
To be honest I was about to start using another product, but searched tonight for an answer before starting over, I found Ross’s comments encouraging, and downloaded the latest version, so far so good, my old version was 2.00.xxx the new version is 4.00.5079.
Thanks for your encouraging update Keith. If anyone has experienced these issues with Memeo then I would encourage them to test the latest version. Ross has offered to let me try the latest beta to see if it fixes my particular issue with the backup database and I look forward to being able to report back once that trial is done.
So come on Ross, bring it on!
Is it safe to assume that I got the unwanted Memeo from my recent purchase of a Western Digital “My Book”? How do I get rid of it? Maybe Ross will be helpful by posting that information on this website.
All I wanted was an external hard drive. I’ll remember that when I decline to buy another Western Digital product.
Hi all,
If anyone else is interested in looking at the beta version that David mentions above, please feel free to contact me directly at ross@memeo.com.
As soon as this build has been validated, we will be rolling the changes into a production build, which will be available as an update to anyone who has previously installed the client.
Thanks!
-Ross
Hi Bill,
I apologize for the delay in my response. I was on vacation last week. Here are the directions on how to uninstall Memeo software from your PC:
http://www.memeo.com/autobackupstd_faqs.php#uninstall
Feel free to contact me directly if you have any problems.
thanks,
-Ross (ross@memeo.com)
Hi David, good pages for all the sufferers of Memeo, I have a ministation, with a full back up inside through Memeo, and this is from my work not a personal one, whit a problem that I already explained to Ross directly, hoping He can help me if not, I will try to restore everything with another program, but I still have “debry” in my register from Memeo that I try can’t get off of my computer, and every time I install a new version of Memeo the same error in the register that Memeo can’t open the key. so I am stack till Ross send me a life line.
Eduardo from Down Under
I just found David Hollingworth’s website regarding Memeo.
I am running Memeo v 3.50.4592 and I have seen the same problem with Memeo Std using XP MCE SP3 and a WD 1TB My Book Essential drive. The backup just stops working. Sometimes it will backup newly added files after a re-boot. The display report indicates that a back-up was done after each re-boot.
I also found that if you try to add an addtional item to the Backup list it didn’t work.
I’m not that great with computers, but I’ve been having a problem with my HP laptop and had to send it in for warranty repair. I bought a 1 TB MyBook, and the Memeo software came bundled with it. The documentation that was included is laughably bad, but after a few test runs, I thought I had a pretty good idea of how the software worked — not as simple as the two-page, so-called “user’s guide” makes it look, but workable.
I backed up my system using the software and then (thankfully) bypassed the software and made a copy of the “my documents” folder directly onto the MyBook.
When my computer came back, the hard drive had been replaced, and all of my documents and software were, of course, gone. I plugged in the MyBook, and asked the Memeo to restore my files. What a mess that has been.
The only file that installed properly was the Memeo software and — disconcertingly — the unwanted trial version of the Memeo AutoSync, osmething I’d already uninstalled from my system AND purged from the MyBook. Every program I’d installed over the previous three years was re-installed in the list of programs as a blank icon attached to a non-working shortcut, even if I’d already re-installed the software. None of my e-mail files were restored.
I did a complete system restore on my computer, resetting the hard drive to factory parameters… and the Memeo software still remained, along with the “ghost” icons.
I called a local computer store, and was told it would cost me $200 to restore the brand-new hard drive to the condition it was in before I tried to use the Memeo software to restore the computer. Ugh. I can’t afford that. So, I deleted everything, hoping I haven’t messed up my hard drive. I did a search, and STILL found hidden Memeo files, deleted them, and will now be using the MyBook as a hard drive… and never using the Memeo software again.
Thanks for your comment Steve and I’m sorry to read of all the hassles you’ve had.
Unfortunately you cannot backup program files using Memeo in this way, or most other backup software fpor this matter, and then expect to be able to restore them. When you install software it writes a lot of entries to the system registry that are essential for the software to function. Simply restoring the program files only puts the files back; it doesn’t recover all this additional information. Backing up the registry and trying to recover that at the same time is likely to kill your system stone dead.
If you want to backup your software then the best way to do it is to make a disk image. Windows these days has a facility to ‘backup your system’ and this should create a full copy of your system that you can later recover. There are some alternative commercial software out there, Acronis True Image seems pretty good and I’ve used this a few times to backup / recover entire drives.
I can confirm that Memeo is a dog. All I can offer is that any company that is prepared to put untested rubbish in the public arena does not deserve to remain in the public arena. Letting users be lab rats is not acceptable and plugging fixes after the event is not good enough. Memeo really only needed to test run the product for a month on three machines to see that it was never going to do the job. Shame on Memeo and Ross Eltherington.
Hi Mark,
I am truly sorry you are having issues. I can assure you that we don’t put “untested rubbish” in the public arena. We have over 1 million registered and active copies of our software in the field. We also rigorously test our software prior to any release. Yes, this is extensively more than a test running the product for a month on three machines.
As you are well aware, the PC landscape is continuously changing with new operating systems and patches, as well as hardware. Our software does occasionally have conflicts, but our development team is continually updating the product to stay ahead. Just in a few weeks, Microsoft will be releasing Windows 7 and we are working hard to make sure we are compatible when this happens.
As I tell any user of of products…if you are unhappy with your purchase, we will gladly refund 100% of the price you paid. No company would be able to make such a claim and stay in the business if their products were not among the most reliable out in the market.
And my earlier offer also stands. I would be happy to facilitate a conversation with our technical support staff so that they can help you with any issues you are having.
Again, I apologize for any issues you are having.
Best regards,
Ross Eltherington
Memeo Inc.
Well Im in the tec feild and I have tried several times before I purchased any software(using trail) and they still havnt responeded to any questions, I instead get auot responce, blahh blahh blahh not even a number on the site, back up softaware stoped days ago, a tec bud let me use a back up software that mirrored the drive, I can one click restore ALL files, I used it on a secoundary drive at a doctors office took me five seprate software to arive at this one, BUT! i dont remaber whos it was, back to doc’s office, cause that comany responed and it worked as claimed with any drive…bye bye memeo!!
Hi Randy,
I’m not sure I fully understand the issue you are having with our software, but I am very concerned about your attempt to reach our support staff (perhaps more than once). This should NEVER happen. If you can send me your email address offline (to ross@memeo.com), I will gladly look into your case personally and try to understand why your responses were not answered, and then of course, help you solve your issue as well.
Thanks,
Ross Eltherington
Memeo Inc.
I have been stuck with Memeo AutoBackup for several months. Today I decided not to watch this painfully slow backup anymore. I found “Karen’s Replicator”, (http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp) and it is writing to my network drive at an average of 50Mbps, as compared to less than 1Mbps Memeo was writing in. Anyone who is looking for a backup, I can only recommend this software. It has a lot of features Memeo has (scheduling, filters, network targets, etc.) and it’s free!
Hi Sebastian,
I was wondering if you could share with me the version of Autobackup you were running? 1Mbps writes to a NAS drive is extremely slow…numbers we don’t typically see for our users.
Thanks,
Ross Eltherington
Memeo, Inc
I too have had nothing but trouble since trying to use this wretched programme. The instructions are anything but intuitive. I contacted Memeo “support” but there was no reply after sending them the logs. I’ll give the Replicator (mentioned above) a try, but I cannot imagine that I’ll ever get Memeo to work properly.
Hi David,
I’m sorry you are having issues with Autobackup. I checked your case and saw that Memeo Support responded to your case on Oct. 28th with a link that had a new version of software. The email was sent at 2:30pm Pacific Standard Time, so should have arrived to you on Oct. 29th in the early AM.
Often, these issues are solved with the most recent version of Autobackup. Let me know if you did not receive the email and I can have it resent. Alternatively, I am happy to facilitate a direct discussion with one of our support reps.
Thanks,
Ross Eltherington
Memeo Inc.
I purchased Memeo Backup Premiun on September 24, 2009. I have had nothing but trouble. I continually received popups that indicate that my trial subscription is running out. I deleate all Memeo files and upload Memeo Backup Premium and continue to get messages that my “Trial” edition has expired and none of my files have been backed up.
I have sent several replies and do not get a response.
Please help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
11/02/2009
Hi James,
Can you check your spam inbox to see if any of our replies were flagged inadvertently? I see that Memeo support responded to you on Oct. 28th. There are no other inquiries after this date. If you contact me directly, I can get you in front of someone who can clear up your issue immediately.
I apologize for your troubles.
Sincerely,
Ross Eltherington (ross@memeo.com)
Thank you, Ross. However I did download and install the latest version of Memeo. There was no improvement. I give up the unequal struggle.
Ross,
Have received support from Memeo regards an issue with signing in to create an online backup. I reinstalled the latest version however was getting the same issue (Win 2000 PC). I reran the software on a XP machine and it works OK! Do you have known issues with Win 2000? The PC I use for research, and therefore has the files I want to back up is the WIN2K machine and I don’t want to have to move them back and forth across PCs just to backup
thanks
Doug
Hi Doug,
We do support Win 2K, but only for our Pro version. If you contact me directly, I can send you a link where you can download and get the software without having to fill out an eval form. If this works ok for you, I can just swap the license key for you.
Thanks,
Ross (ross@memeo.com)
Hello David,
Sorry the latest version didn’t solve your issue. Without knowing the details, I can say that in most cases, there is usually something trivial that can be solved via a Support inquiry. I know you have put some time into this already, but I will offer this to you. I can have a support engineer call you directly to get you up and running again.
If you have already moved on, I will also offer to fully refund your purchase. Just contact me directly either way, and I will get the process started.
Thanks,
-Ross (ross@memeo.com)
Also very disappointed with the version of Memeo, it’s a performance hog and a hard disk sponge. I was wondering if I can delete the 11Gig of journal files on my hard disk, with out wreaking havoc on my computer?
Anyone? Bueller?
Hi William,
It appears you have an old version of Memeo Autobackup. You can definitely delete those log files and reclaim all that space back. You should also go to http://www.memeo.com and download the most recent version of the software. This will cure that problem and is much improved in the area of performance. You can download the free trial version and use your same product key.
If you have any issues, feel free to contact me directly.
thanks,
-Ross (ross@memeo.com)
Got Memeo with my Buffalo drive about 2 weeks ago and since then it’s been trying to do it’s first backup. Maybe Microsoft is at least partially to blame as my PC downloaded an update and rebooted. But 2 weeks of my PC running continuously day and night and it STILL goes on and on…
I took a note this morning of how many files were backup up, and now 17 hours later it’s managed to back up 1583 more. Considering most of these files are web pages and absolutely tiny, I’ll be here till next year.
I did put a report into Support and all the help I got was just leave it until it finished, and it may go faster if I leave the window open.
The window has been open all day and it still managed only 1583 files.
It’s interesting that some people say it’s a performance hog – I can’t get it to take CPU at all. It’s running at the moment – window open. System idle is at 98%, firefox at 1% and everything else at 0%. No wonder it backs up nothing.
I thought I was getting a good deal getting the software with my Buffalo drive, now I need to find something else that works.
Toni
I’ve been a Software Developer since 1995, before that I was a Netware CNE, and a Redhat Linux Admin. The one thing that has been consistant joke in the pc & mac industry in regards to backup software, is that it RARELY ever works!!! The programmming is sloppy, almost never tested adequately by Q/A.
I say it’s a joke, because Backup software has only ONE function–to backup you hard drive–and it fails consistently!! The only way we’ve been able to really be safe is to create multipe-RAID configurations, which of course is very expensive, but at least you are safe. The reason the software gets away with this crap and steals money from the naive public, is because most people don’t actually VERIFY the integrity & accuracy of their backup software and, most-importantly, the integrity & accuracy data that is supposedly being backed up.
To Ross: What I found on your website just now (11-28-2009 @ 11:58 AM EST) falls under the category of minutia, but when one reads it, it certainly doesn’t garner any confidence in your product because it is once again sloppy.
By clicking “View Compariston Chart” link, you are presented with a list of features included with Memeo and Instant and Premium.
The phrase “Back up multiple file versions” is listed twice, once at the top of Premium list, and again at the bottom.
–Back up multiple file versions
Back up by tag name (Smart Tags)
Right-click to add folder to back up
Integrates into Windows Explorer
Multiple backup plans
Restore individual files
–Back up multiple file versions
Again, trivial. But reveals low-level of Q/A.
Also, forgot to mention that I tried the software using Windows 7, on an a new Intel I7 2.67 GHZ PC with 9 GB RAM and eSata Drives. Was backing up to an external Western Digital 1.5 TB Drive connected with an external eSata cable. I started the backup last night at 10:30PM (I chose approx 800 gb data to backup). This morning at 8:00AM the software had backed up about 20 gig. 20 GIGS in 10 hours?!!! Incredibly slow. In six months or so I should have a full backup…except, I just uninstalled the software and I’m looking elsewhere.
Hi Toni,
Something is definitely wrong if only 1583 files have backed up in 17 hours. On an idle machine, our backup speed should be comparable to dragging a file to a drive using Windows explorer. Things that can slow this down are if the user is active during the copy, since we will favor the user if they are doing work during the backup.
Also, keep in mind that this is the initial backup. After everything has been backed up, only incremental changes are pushed across as changes are made. For the most part, this is absolutely invisible to the user.
I’m surprised the support response was just to let the backup finish. I will check into that to make sure something more tangible is delivered to you.
Often, these issues happen because the software that comes with the drive is an older version. Once of the challenges we have bundling software with hard drives, is that the lead time required to get the software on the drive is many months in advance.
That said, the support response in unacceptable and I will get to the bottom of this. If you would like, I can arrange for a technical support engineer to contact you directly. My email is left below.
I apologize for the inconvenience.
Best regards,
Ross (ross@memeo.com)
Just a followup for any of you that are interested. Over the weekend I installed and tested Cobian backup (free tool, very cool, written using Delphi, which sort of surpised me, but I guess it shouldn’t because if a language works for you, no reason to change and this guy has done a great job.) Anyway Cobian’s it’s performance was awesome. Ran 3 full backups of 800 gigs and then tested differential and incremental. Will be doing more testing of software and checking integrity of data for a few weeks, but so far, it’s great. Google it.
Hi Jay,
I’m sorry that you are having an issue with your backup. As I mentioned to Toni in the post above, our backup performance should be pretty close to taking those same files and dragging them directly to the drive. We do a little bit of overhead per transfer, verifying and tracking changes, but nothing that would be significant in delay. I would be happy to arrange to have one of our techs to call you directly to look over your config. They can usually get you going in no time at all.
As for your comments about sloppy programming and inadequate QA, you are way off base. As a software engineer, surely you must appreciate the complexity of ensuring data integrity, keeping track of file changes, verifying file transfers, continuous data protection etc. (and I could go on) We have a full staff of development and quality engineers working to make sure the product is the highest quality. And we feel it is. We have over 1 million active customers in the field. No company would be able to stay in business by putting out shoddy software.
There are many fine software backup companies in addition to ours in the industry. Your blanket statement about backup products rarely working is both irresponsible and naive. I would be happy to provide you a list of multi-million dollar revenue companies that make their money in the software backup space and have satisfied customers. We are one of them!
Lastly, I have alerted our marketing folks on the typo, as our QA engineers simply don’t spend time on the product website, but rather focusing on technical issues with our products. Thank you for pointing it out to us.
As I offer to everyone, I am happy to facilitate a connection with technical support. If this is not satisfactory, I will offer to refund you for the price you paid for the product. No questions asked.
regards.
Ross Eltherington
Memeo Inc.
Hi Ross,
While I admit my comments sound somewhat harsh with my statements about the backup software industry, I’m not at all naive or irresponsible on this topic. I’ve dealt with this very issue for nearly two decades. And I completely appreciate the complexities of software engineering. It is extremely difficult and even terrifying at times when we send out a new release of our software.
That being said, your statement, “No company would be able to stay in business by putting out shoddy software,” is laugh-out-loud-funny. And not just about software companies, but all companies in general (Microsoft, Novell, General Motors, Ford and I could go on and on).
The ability to stay in business CAN be completely hinged on simply creating a certain perception, using clever marketing tactics–irrespective of whether the claims being made are valid. (I wrote CAN, because, I’m honestly not implying your company falls under that umbrella. I will give you the benefit of saying perhaps I didn’t stay at it long enough.) And, just so you know I actually LIKE Microsoft (I’m not a Mac/Linux troll that hates the company.) Nevertheless, Windows ME and Windows Vista just plain awful, and the whole time Microsoft’s stock performed just fine. (Off-topic, but Windows 7 is the COOLEST OS I’ve seen for many years. It’s great that macs have always been so sexy, but if they don’t actually DO much, they are worthless to me. With Windows 7, we get both. Go Microsoft!)
Ford & GM and other American auto-makers have been building complete throw-away cars 30-40 years and only recently because of the outlandish gas-gouging did they feel any real pain.
->”I would be happy to provide you a list of multi-million dollar revenue companies that make their money in the software backup space and have satisfied customers. We are one of them!”
Sounds a bit like hyperbole, but I won’t dispute that with you. I’m glad you have a million customers, I hope you have continued success. But my point is still valid here: Microsoft, Apple, (and once upon a time, Novell), Ford, GM, etc. etc., have all had their hands in several very different products at once. But I’ve always found it ironic that Backup-Software companies are usually focused on designing ONE type of software product (though it may have a various number of tiers). This software is supposed to fulfill ONE, specific purpose: To back-up data, and to make sure that if a disaster happens, the customer can get their data restored. (I know, it’s an over-simplification, but think of it from a consumer’s perspective.). My experience has been that many of them consistently fail at this task. Either the performance is terrible, the backups fails for a number of reasons in the backup process itself (intermittently or consistently), the data supposedly backed up is unreadable, (partially or completely), and the so-called “One-click Disaster Recovery” exists only in our happy little dreams. (Hence all of the warnings in the product docs of only using that as a last resort— it’s because it freaking doesn’t work!!!—it’s a myth!)
From an Enterprise level, in order to get reliable backup software we had to shell out several thousand dollars in tape-backup hardware and jumping from one company to another before we were able to find something that really worked. So I guess you could respond with “you get what you pay for.” And that would be a somewhat-valid point. One can argue that “well gee-whiz, they only paid $49.95, so why are they complaining?” Yeah, so they don’t charge $8k-15k for the product. But taking $50 dollars from even a half a million people and claiming that the software is indeed performing that one important function, when it doesn’t, really bites. And the reason this is so tragic is because a half a million people think they can sleep at night because their data, photos, videos, documents, etc. are all safe and sound because they paid $49 and received NOTHING, and lost much. Most of them don’t ever know they are getting ripped off because they don’t ever have to put the software to the test as their hard drives last long enough for them to eventually upgrade to a new pc– that is a statistic that I’m positive backup software companies bank on.
(Before you get on the defensive, I’m saying this in-general, I really have no beef with your company, as I’ve only tried your software once and perhaps if I would have stayed with it for a while maybe things could have worked out.)
But, there are plenty of Backup software companies that put out “shoddy software” and stay in business, at least for a few years.
In any case, I wish you nothing but continued success with your product and hope that you are able to fix the hiccups and provide a valuable service to your customers.
Warm regards,
Jay
Hi Jay,
Thanks for your reply. I actually agree with you on many of your points…when taken generally, of course 😉
Let me know how your search for a backup product goes. 800 GB of data definitely has you on the consumer bleeding edge. I would be interested in knowing what finally passes muster with you. If you want to give Memeo another shot, I’ll be happy to send along a product key for you to try.
Meanwhile, we will keep fixing the hiccups and making things better for everyone.
best regards,
-Ross
(ross@memeo.com)
Ross,
Before I buy your software(I never got around to using the trial version,before the trial time ran out),but since I can’t seem to escape the perpetual (buy memeo now) pop ups,I googled memeo problems and found this thread, I certainly don’t want all the problems the fine folks at the beginning of this thread had or have. But I would like to have what Jay says is theoretically possible (1 click and I am back in business after a crash of sorts),what would you suggest I do first so as not to screw this process up. I really, really do not need any more grief……Thank You Jon
Hi Jon,
Our software does provide a one-click restore option. You basically choose if you want to restore the files to original locations, or to a folder on your drive. I think Jon’s assessment is a bit harsh in saying that it doesn’t work, but he is correct in saying that some companies have managed to bungle this rather simplistic task.
The other option is something you can do completely independent of our software. You can simply go to your backup drive and drag the files over to your computer. This will work assuming you are not encrypting your files. If so, you need to use our software to unencrypt prior to any restore option.
I would suggest you try this under different scenarios (restore a single file, restore a directory, restore all) just so that you can feel secure if/when something catastrophic does happen.
If you do purchase the software and find it doesn’t work for you, I will simply refund your money. We like to think that we will work for every single customer, but if for whatever reason we don’t, we won’t keep your money.
As for the issues earlier in this thread. Many of them have been fixed in later versions of the software. Others continue to pop up now and then, because some of our software is bundled with hard drives. Since these can live for a long time in the distribution chain, sometimes older version of the software can get into the consumers hands. In most cases, a free update to the latest version solves the issue.
If you have any other questions/issues, feel free to contact me directly. (ross@memeo.com)
Best regards,
-Ross
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I too have had the problem of massive log files that stopped my computer working. I have memeo backup installed on 3 machines. I am using a mixture of versions 2.00.1150 and 2.00.1451 on 2 windows XP machines. These both have very large log files which I have to delete to allow the computer to function. I have also installed Memeo backup premium on another machine my main problem is that it doesn’t allow backups of outlook express emails although there is a file renaming work around that appears to work. The third machine is version 4.60.0.6554 running under Vista and doesn’t appear to have the large Log files.
Clearly the earlier versions of the software is not fit for purpose. Has anyone successfully upgraded from the earlier versions.
Hi Dave.
I replied to you directly as well, but I will summarize here as well. The issue you are experiencing has been fixed for awhile now. You can go to memeo.com and download the most recent version and install this over your older version. There is no charge for that. Outlook Express and Outlook both can be backed up using the Premium software. You can find them by selecting them with the “Smart Picks” feature. If you have any other questions, feel free to contact me again.
thanks,
-Ross
In reply to Ross: no, the faults in Memeo haven’t been fixed in either the Windows or the Mac versions. Using the latest versions I get the same problems on both my Macbook and my Windows XP machines. As a backup system Memeo is as secure as the proverbial snowflake in Hell. Reaching the end of my tether, I’ve just uninstalled Memeo (on both Mac and Windows) and repaced it with “Intego Personal Backup” on my MacBook and, by mapping my Windows drives, backup up the files on all my computers in the one operation – SECURELY!
Hi John,
What problem are you experiencing on both of your machines? Can you tell me what version of the software you are using? The issue that Dave and others referred (large log files) to was fixed over a year ago. Some folks still run into it due to the older version of the software being bundled on drives etc.
You also make a comment about the software not being “secure”. Are you referring to encryption, or is this something else? If you would like, I can arrange for you to talk directly with a Tech support engineer. You can email me directly (ross@memeo.com).
thanks.
Hi,
I have used Memeo LifeAgent (Mac) for a couple of weeks. As there were several things in this software I did not like, I decided to uninstall the software. Well that worked (I thought). Looking at the invisible files on the hard disks I found tons and tons of .Memeo files. I removed these all (I thought). Some weeks later I did a scan using Spring Cleaning. It found another (more than) 50.000 of these .Memeo files on one of our backup disks (just 1TB).
So far I have not seen any reviews describing this extensive disk pollution. Memeo… don’t even try it.. even if you can do this FOC.
Today we use Intego PersonalBackup… Great features and easy to set-up. Go for this software instead, I should say.
After writing the previous feedback, I realized that we have another external HD that is used by a colleague of mine. Also on this disk we used first Memeo and uninstalled it after a few weeks… I started immediately a .Memeo file search. Until now it found 62764 .Memeo files. This while the search is still proceeding. I just wonder if I can send an invoice to Memeo for this clean-up work… I suppose that Ross can inform us about the details on how to proceed with this.
Hi Erkki,
There will be a .Memeo file corresponding to every single file that was backed up. This file just contains meta data relating to the file (and are ~1K each). All these files are contained in the destination backup folder, so you can simply delete the folder to get rid of them.
Normally, these files are deleted when the application is uninstalled. If the application is just dragged to the trash, or the destination drives are not available when the uninstall is done, these files will remain.
If you want to preserve the backed up files (and not delete the destination directory), you can get rid of the .Memeo files using the terminal.
If you would like to do this, please contact me directly and I will send you the command to invoke.
-Ross (ross@memeo.com)
Ross, you appear to be blindly defending this product. I can also confirm the same things they are saying and in the latest version oF Memeo Premium. This software is junk! Backup plans on WinXP keep coming up missing, high CPU utilization, not all files get backed up, etc
Hi Tom,
This discussion is not about defending anything. It’s about giving folks help who have experienced issues with the Memeo Backup software. If you would like some assistance, I would be happy to get you connected with one of our technical support engineers.
Without know the specific details, its difficult to say exactly what the issue is with your installation. But from looking at our entire user base, your issues are not consistent with what we are seeing in the field. That’s all I am saying here.
Please feel free to contact me directly at ross@memeo.com.
-Ross
Hi all,
I’m trying to work through the high CPU drag issue. 33% to 50% on a Core2 Duo (XP)seems a bit much. Even after leaving the machine running unattended for hours, which would seem to let it sort itself out, no real noticeable pattern. Interestingly, I only have that issue on one or two machines, there are others here that don’t seem to be bothered. I’m going to look into it further and hope. Version 4.50.5735 currently.
Hi Mark,
I’m sorry you are experiencing issues with Autobackup.
Can I have one of our Support engineers reach out to you directly? It would be interesting to look at the logs to see what is happening under the hood. There may be some interaction with another process or application causing the issue, since it doesn’t sound like there are any active backups occurring.
You can contact me directly at ross@memeo.com.
Thanks,
-Ross
A space hog. Suddenly, I had zero disk space available warnings, spent all day cleaning out files, 2% available.
Kept seeing “Memeo” whenever T attempted defrags or cleanups so I deleted it.
Voila! 74% now available. I am done with it.
Hi Jahk,
Were you running the most recent version of Autobackup (ver. 4.5)? Older versions of the software could exhibit the behavior you saw under rare circumstances. If you are interested I’d be happy to send you a new version. Just contact me at the address below.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
-Ross (ross@memeo.com)