I set the software to backup my WHOLE drive (from the C: directory down, with no exclusions). That's about 208GB of data. I've left it running overnight and over a day at work, and this is the progress so far.
(I didn't take a snapshot of the other screen, which indicates that this process was started at 12:32 am, so it's actually been running for about 19.5 hours at this point, though it apparently was idle for a while)
That's right: after 19.5 hours of work, it has only backed up about 20 GB of my data. At this rate, it will take about eight and a half days to complete. USB 2.0 may be slow, but it ain't that slow! The whole time, it's been using between 30% and 50% of one of my CPU cores.
To be fair, it is verifying the contents of all of the backed-up files as it goes. I do appreciate that. But seriously!
To ensure that it wasn't a problem with the drive, I copied my 1.3GB Guild Wars data file (a single file) to the drive. That took 1'09". I copied my nearly 8GB Unreal Tournament 3 install to the drive (1900 files exactly), and that took 10'21". Memeo copies files at 2% of the speed that Windows Explorer does. Another way to look at it is that Memeo is 50x slower than Windows Explorer.
I recommend that you don't buy Memeo software. They might eventually get it right, but you should wait until then. Western Digital should find a new company to provide their backup software - this Memeo junk just makes them look bad.
46 comments:
Agree absolutely. I am disgusted with it, and now i have found that Memeo Autosync seems to have embedded itself in such a way that it cannot be removed in the normal "remove program" way. Memeo's homepage has no contact information or support. This is almost a kind of virus and I am surprised that Western Digital associates itself with this company. Mc Afee has a yellow flag on Memeo's homepage, by the way.
I too have the same miserable problem with this CRAP Memeo software. I don't want it, nevber wanted it, never installed it, it's just imbeded into the drive somehow... pissing me off to have to deal with it at all. I even did a zero fill reformat of the entire drive to try and rid myself of this program to no avail... SHAME ON YOU WESTERN DIGITAL!!!!SHAME ON YOU!!!!! I won't buy any more of your products because of this i'm sure other sfeel the same way
RIP-OFF: I didn't want Memeo AutoSync. It came with my four new WD 1 Terabyte drives. I have attempted to un-install, delete, and otherwise remove the program to no avail. The program is embedded in the Windows Files, not easily accessed. It is not only shameful but corrupt, unprincipled, and supremely devious to put a software product that can not be easily un-installed on a hardware add-on product. WD, you should know better. Memeo, your days are numbered.
i got this Memeo AutoSync and tried it for the trial period and loved it i have many files that i want backed up as i put them in one drive it automatically syncs them to another drive i designated. i have searched online for another software like this and found nothing like it, it does it live, and if one drive is not connected when i add the info, then later, when i reconnect it, it syncs automatically. works great and i would recommend it.
With Memeo AutoSync you will always have your latest work or most current photos updated on all of your computers. To show our thanks we invite you to take $10 off your next Memeo purchase.
Simply click the shop now button and enter the code spring08thanks at checkout.
In case it's not obvious, the same David posted the previous 2 comments. They both point to the same Blogger ID. To me, it appears that he is somehow affiliated with Memeo. You may not be able to trust anything he says.
I upgraded my version that came with the WD Book to the Autobackup Professional version, yes with the WD serial number. So the version that came with the WD Book must have been a rebranded Professional version.
But besides that I agree, this backup software is EXTREMELY slow way beyond the point that its useful anymore.
Fact remains that I do need a decent backup tool. I have tried Acronis True Image, which is amazingly fast but its not made for constant backups and thus of no use to me, but if you need a daily/weekly backup I do recommend it. I tried Norton Ghost 11 which does a similar job like Acronis but can be positioned between Memeo and Acronis, its not as fast as Acronis and a lot more sluggish but its easier to use for 'auto backup' purposes but it's still not what I need, I just need the Memeo solution with the speed of Acronis.
This leaves the question... what do you all use???? There must be something out there??
I just installed "WD Anywhere backup" which is the rebranded Memeo program, that you are talking about. It came for free on a new WD1TB external USB2 drive. Its better that LaCies free backup program in so far as it doesn't crash, also it can resume (well in practice it can, i.e. there is no pause button so I use task manager to kill it and when I load it again presto it resumes). However it is sooooo slow, even if we forget the verification - which we cannot disable - the copying process is slower than windows itself. I suggest SuperCopier instead, its a replacement for windows copy.
Thanks for the tip about SuperCopier. I was surprised to see that it's a Sourceforge project. When I get a chance, I'll take a look!
Auto Sync WARNING - my latest sync has added thousands of files to my laptop. I sync between laptop and my western digital drive and AS (great acronym) misread the WD files as having been changed, so it added a new version of each file on my laptop, with (1)appended. They've been trying to fix this problem since V2, so they know it's happening! http://www.memeo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1096 The only solution is to MANUALLY REMOVE every duplication.......groan.....
So I've been running HP's Windows Home Server now for several months. With the data corruption bug now safely patched (though it apparently never affected backups), I'm very comfortable with it. I have not yet had to restore a computer from it, but it is relatively painless to browse a backup and cherry-pick files from it.
WHS stores snapshots of your computer's whole hard drive. This is unlike AutoSync, which keeps your internal and external drives in sync. The backup runs nightly, and I have 2 months of snapshots available to me. It always finishes reasonably quickly (appears to be 30-40 minutes, but I might be misreading logs).
In the end, it's an expensive backup solution. On the other hand, it has other perks (RDC form the internet is nice). It's dependable, it's expandable, and it works. Just like Autosync isn't for everyone, I don't think the WHS is the right choice for some people. But consider it.
I got Memeo the way you all did - by buying the WD external hard drive. I didn't like the soft. It uploads automatically upon the comp's switch-on and lurks in my system tray that is quite irritating. Second, it's a shame we got the trial version of this soft while we have already paid for the drive! So I get rid of Memeo for better. I make backups with PE Builder and copy it to the WD drive.
And by the way - I uninstalled Memeo easily via the control panel.
the benefit of memeo is that syncs in real time,
i have 2 external drives and one syncs to the other, and even if one drive is not plugged in, it will remember & once connected will sync all data. its like having a drobo system that you can keep adding drives to.
My first uninstall of Memeo was unsuccessful. Eventually, had to do a restore (new Dell Studio 15 laptop with Vista Home Premium), which also restored Memeo. Successfully uninstalled Memeo this time but then hard drive went bad, would not let me log in with constant hd seeks. Dell also replaced motherboard but tech connected Western Digital external drive and Memeo is back on! Worse, back up Memeo made a month ago was strangely incomplete of graphic files in Music directory, among other things. I would like to delete Memeo but don't know how to do so safely.
I purchased a WT MyBook External Memory as a 'warehouse' for electronic marine navigation charts. I made my purchase at a Best Buy Store but only after consultiong one of their so called experts who assured me of the right choice. NOTE I had no desire to purchase, acquire, or have bestowed upon me, any software or programs.
I set sail for the West Indies and attached the WT External Memory. Now my Navigation Computer is seriously corrupted by the AUTO SYNC WORM.
First off I contacted Best Buy: Despite my telling them I was in mid Atlantic on a 60,000 lb yacht they told me, twice, to take the ship's computer into one of their stores and have the Geek Guys look at it.Then, after being told my Sat Comm system was unavailable they sent me a telephone number.
My attornies are now looking after that problem.
Then I appealed to Memeo. After following all instructions I am still stuck with the same problem. Then another guy at Memeo gets in on the act and tries to talk me into installing up grades.
So next I went to WT. I found their 'contact site' and spent valuable time composing a detailed description of the problem only, when I tried to send the e-mail, it was blocked.
Note: I never installed anything! I pay good money for anti spy, anti virus, anti everything pr4otection for my computer systems only to have the most insideous of BUGS get in through a Trojan Horse sold by a company with no consideration for its customers
I am faced with having to cancel a whole seasons chartering without reliable navigation capability so:
Lawyers, Injunctions, Courts, possible class actions, damages, punitive damaged
I too have this pestilence on my computer, I get about 6 windows popping up each time I open which then have to closed and everything has been slowed up because of it. How do I get rid of it?
I discovered that memeo can be removed by doing a 'system restore'
To me, Memeo software is and acts like a virus. There is no Uninstall program included, the VIRUS keeps on installing itself, and there is no easy way to contact the "company" that has developed this VIRUS.
What a SCAM!!! I thought I was getting a bargain @ 89.00 for 500GB of storage until this MEMEO crap!! I use MAC's because they are unable to get viruses or Malware of any kind and YET here I am STUCK with this MEMEO BULLS**T if ANYONE figures out a way to eliminate this VIRUS "LIKE" program from my Mac PLEASE let me know!! EVEN worse, I am picking up a brand new 2.65gHZ core 2 duo iMAC next week and I am super afraid to hook this external hdd to the system. I wish companies were MADE to be responsible for their products as in offering not only FULL REFUNDS of the purchase price of the hard drive but ALSO compensating the customer in some way for ALL the WASTED time and effort put into dealing with the "MEMEO VIRUS" Furthermore, I wish there were some way to spread the word to a large percentage of the computer retail customers to warn then to NEVER buy ANY WESTERN DIGITAL PRODUCTS until they erradicate this Memeo DEMON, hit WD where it hurts..RIGHT IN THE WALLET!! Teach them to deal with upstanding companies...NOT MEMEO!!!!
I would like to point out that my actual drive is doing just fine (since I applied a firmware update just after I got it). WD certainly knows how to make decent drives.
Not long after making my post, I was able to uninstall the WD software by simply running the uninstaller. It seemed to clean itself up pretty well. I didn't have to do a system restore, and it never behaved like spyware. If you are seeing spyware-like behavior, you might actually have spyware. Try checking out Ad-Aware.
@getinkedtattoos, I wouldn't worry about plugging it into your Mac. Though your Mac can certainly get viruses, I don't think plugging the drive in will cause problems. Just don't install any of the software that you don't want to use.
again i want to say to all those saying its very slow etc..
in my experience the speed is within reason, and very reliable, i am talking not about the backup program but about the sync program, and just to clarify, what Daniel Yankowsky has come up with this wonderful conspiracy theory, i just want to say that mr Yankowsky we don't live in the soviet union anymore and people are allowed to disagree, especially when its factual i use the program on a daily basis.
This was very useful to me. The more general point is that user annoyance follows naturally when software engineers design automatic backup programs that lack transparency. If you want to read people going nuts about Lenovo's Rescue and Revoery go here. Automating backups is appealing, but it ties up the CPU, RAM and hard disc space. There are some serious issues here about giving the user control and knowledge of the process, and Memeo has done a terrible job with those.
I agree, it's slow, but in a way you are using it...
Don't shoot the messenger, but I think that you should first copy all your files manually to backup location of your choice, and then just point original and backup location to AutoSync in order to keep them synchronised. In the first place that is the main purpose of this tool - sync, not backup...
My problem with Memeo is that it will say that all syncs are up to date, but if I open the folder on my external hard drive and the folder on my computer that are supposed to be synced, the folder on the external hard drive have WAY OLD files in it, so there is no way that all syncs are up to date. So every once in a while, I wipe the external drive and do a manual backup of the files, then recreate a sync plan, so to me Memeo is just a waste of space. If I could find another real-time backup program, I would use it instead. Anyone find one yet?
I just completed my first backup of my personal data files, including pictures, video, music, and documents (about 40 gig). It took 16 hours to complete. That is completely ridiculous! I'm uninstalling this piece of crap right now! How anyone(memeo) could try to sell a piece of junk like this is beyond me. Why the hell WD would choose this to bundle with their products is beyond me too. The person who made that decision should be fired! What a complete waste of time.
bought my husband the WD 1TB ext HD and he tried the memeo autosync. It ran for over 5 hours and then he discovered there was precious little memory left on his laptop rending it useless. We haven't been able to restore and can't locate any duplicate files but the autosync had to have done something. What now? Memeo with no live tech support no help. We've spent all day on this problem and are no further along then when we began. We were able to uninstall the memeo auto backup but not the autosync. So, I agree, it is very much like a virus/worm. Our spyware is up-to-date and run weekly. It's the autosyn!
I too, am very dissatisfied with this Memeo.
Please WD, how can I get RID of it!!!!
I will not purchase another WD product!
Shameful business practice.
I bought a 1TB Buffalo DriveStation FlexNet with both external USB and NAS capabilities. I was skeptical about the Memeo included backup software but intrigued by the idea of automatic backup of changed files. So, I stupidly went ahead with the first backup of my desktop hard drive to the DriveStation connected to my home network. I designated a group of files, mostly photos, that amounted to about 150 GB. The process was started on 6/23 and it is now 6/28 and I still have 21GB to go....talk about slow!!! I have left the computer alone to do its work in the backup so there has been no conflict for resources. This is unbelieveably slow!
I bought East-Tec Backup 2009. Very good and very fast.
Alwaysync maybe another choice. I have just started the memeo sync program. I started the backup program a couple of weeks ago. It may be slowing down my dell dimension at times. time will tell.
I agree that this memeo malware is a piece of junk!
It's simply HORRIBLE.
I only wished I had read about it BEFORE installing this crap.
SHAME on you WD for putting all of us through this!
We PAID you and THIS is what we get???
A backup of only 50 Gig (onto a 1TB WD My Book Home Edition) took more than 3 days!!
I started several times over because I could not believe how slow it was.
I even got a firwire cable, but it is really the software.
Now I did that same thing with acronis' free software (from Seagate) and it has finished already. But in order to use that software you need to hook up a seagate/maxtor drive.
Anyhow, good to know that others had the same issue, I thought this cannot be....
Shame on you, WD.
No more WD for me.
I received WD MY Book and thought it would be a great way to back up my files, I'm an artist and have 10's of thousands of pictures for my inspiration as well as website pics. The thought of losing all of this without proper backup would be a nightmare. This was supposed to be a second external hard drive to back my my computer, so as to leave my C: drive clean and then the computer will run smoothly. We installed memeo autosync thinking it would make sure that everything backed up on both external drives. Except I now find out almost a year later that it is also backing everything -ALL OF MY PICS on my C drive which is slowing everything down.Just what I didn't want! I can't find pictures to email them. The picture program picasa also came with it. I like this program, but I didn't realize that it dosen't save them to the new external drive. When I update a photo it sends it to some obscure file within a file within a file, etc., etc., I have to run a search just to find one picture. I just discovered that there are so many multiples of each picture that I think it is duplicating things like a virus. I want to delete the pictures off my C drive but I'm afraid it will back up and delete all of the files off my other drives, because it will probably sync by deleting files I deleted on C drive as well as duplicating new files!!!!!!! I thought we removed the autosync, but apparently it's still there. And my computer is running much slower. This is really screwed up and I wouldn't recommend this product. If my files get deleted who's fault is this. Years and Years of research for my artwork, what's that worth? I guess they could care less!!!
Hey if you need a backup program windows vista comes with "back up files" that can check at every time period you set it at
SIGH I wished I had seen this before buying WD my book and trusting the backup software...
It has been running over a week now and is only 1/4 through 200 gigs. I have as part of my job, about 900,000 25k jpgs which seems to add to the overall poor transfer rate. I just want to choke somebody.
John
I have just bought a WD World Edition 1TB and WD Anywhere running under Vista took 12 hours to backup and verify 28GB through a SAGEM router At this rate it would have taken 4 days to back up my 200GBs so I switched to MS SyncToy which copied 28GB in the first hour, still slow but acceptable. I have used SyncToy in the past it is free, reliable but not very sophisticated, I schedule it using Windows Task Scheduler. Remember, the WD NAS device is a computer not just a hard drive and I guess part of the problem is the speed of the software on that device.
For anyone who is looking for an alternative to Memeo AutoBackup: try Karen's Replicator (http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp)
It is freeware, it is extremely fast compared to my Memeo software, and it has most of the features of AutoBackup.
Good luck!
I FEEL THAT A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT NEEDS TO BE FILED AGAINST WESTERN DIGITAL MEMEO, BECAUSE IT IS PROBABLY ONE OF THE WORST PROGRAMS EVER INTRODUCED AND YOU CAN'T EVEN GET ANY SUPPORT FROM ANYONE...I WOULDN'T BUY ANOTHER WESTERN DIGITAL DRIVE EVEN IF IT WERE A 2 FOR 1 DEAL...JUNK...JUNK...JUNK...BAD SOFTWARE...NO SUPPORT...
JC
I got this crap from my Seagate Hard Drive. I contacted Seagate and was told I did not need to buy the so clled upgrade. This Memeo is spam and I cannot get rid of hte pop ups. I am unable to contact Seagate to complain. I realize I have been screwed by Seagate and Memeo out of my purchase price. I am ready to throw the hard drive out. And what upsets me most, my ISP reccomended Seagate to me. But I should never have bought this thing, as I bought a Seagate previously and it never worked, nor could I get a response from Seagate.
Fireguy
I usually never post or leave comments on websites, but that memeo absolute garbage crap pissed me off so bad that I had to write it.
Honestly one of the worst software ever. And what's the deal with the insanely crappy slow transfer rate when using their backup utility? They don't test their sh1t before they release it? What do they think we're backing up, 1ko files?? And to top it off they call it "Instant backup". Seriously, come on.
I just bought a Seagate external hard drive which has memeo software. For the last 7 hours it has copied 998.5 MB of data (yes it is Megabyte!!) What a Crap!
If somebody (from Seagate) is out there listening, please get rid of this memeo crap from your products.
Something is hogging my Ram, when I have nothing running something is using over 55% of my memory. I disconnected my backup drive and some thing is still running. I can't use Photoshop 5.5 because not enough ram is available. Seems this started when I was messing around and did a restore. Suddenly I had double space usage. Whenever I attach the drive, and click instant backup, it tells me it is still running. Help !
I am a user of both Memeo Autobackup and Memeo Synch. I don't have any relationship with the company. I have been reading other users comments and I found that those that find Memeo slow or problematic is because they haven't really investigated about Memeo. Memeo is not a simple copy/paste program, it performs other operations and it tries to do it by consuming few resources of your computer. Of course if you are trying to backup or synch hundreds of GB, it will take days or even weeks (in that case it is better the first time to copy all the information to the backup or synch unit directly, without using Memeo). After that, Memeo should work silently using few resources and taking care of creating incremental backups or synchronizing the data from different devices. We actually use Memeo in a small company to backup the data of 7 computers into one network hard drive and it works fine. Memeo is not good to create incremental backups of large files that are constantly changing. For example files of Email clients (Thunderbird, Outlook express), or if you do video editing with movies or other media files. I would say that you should give a second chance to this program, specially if your files whose size is in the range of 0MB to 50MB (documents, mp3 files, pictures, etc.)
Anonymous,
Thanks for the differing opinion. I'm sure that the software has changed a lot since I made this first post (almost 4 years ago). I agree, realtime synchronization is a nice feature (much better than, say, weekly backups).
I still maintain, though, that the backup software should not take 8 days to do an initial backup of a few hundred gigs. Not that this is a fair comparison, but I seem to recall that an initial Time Machine backup on my Mac of something like 400GB took less than a day. Backing up my Windows machine to my Windows Home Server took a similar amount of time. There's something about the way that Autosync worked that was very inefficient.
There's a fair chance that the software has been improved at this point. I don't really have a need for Autosync (or any similar product) now, but I'll consider evaluating it again in the future.
This software is an absolute piece of shit which got installed when I bought a Seagate 2Tb external drive. I tried to back up a few 100Gb and four days later it's still only 25% through the backup. I've uninstalled this piece of crap, backing up the files manually would be better than waiting for this shit software to finish its job.
I own a WD MyBook World edition 2HD which I used as RAID 1 for my Windows XP computer.
Now I bought a new computer with Windows 8. Windows sees/detects the WD MyBook World edtione.
But WD does not have sync software to use with Windows 8 #FAIL
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