Review: Memeo Autobackup Premium
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.
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)