Memeo Backup

When I bought a Seagate external drive a few years ago it came with backup software. It works ok, but I am not sure what it is backing up when it says, "C: drive". The size reported is only 393 GB while my drive has 450 GB stored on it. Rather than showing specific directories or files it shows categories like, "Documents", "Videos", etc. It shows

130 GB of "Others" which gives me no info at all.

I realize they likely don't backup the windows folders and such, but how can I tell if it is backing up my various folders that aren't under "user"?

Anyone here use this product?

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Rick
Reply to
rickman
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In order to know if your backup strategy works, you have to try restoring. You can restore to a different drive, then compare.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

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Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
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Phil Hobbs

Memeo seems to backup to a directory on the backup drive so that the results can be viewed. Looks like I can just do a straight compare. This will also let me see just what is being backed up.

I'm still using the computer, so this is slow. To get a full speed backup the app has to be in the foreground.

I've used this product before on my last laptop. It came in very useful as a comfort factor, but the original drive is still with me in a USB

2.5 inch drive case. I didn't realize I hadn't even started this process with my new laptop. I'm getting forgetful in my old age. I even had to download a new version of the software as what came on the backup drive won't work under Win8.
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Rick
Reply to
rickman

I have several customers using the version of Memeo bundled with Buffalo and Seagate NAS drives. None have upgraded to the Pro version. The software is easy to install and almost impossible to reconfigure. If your backup drive fails, and you replace the drive, it could easily assign the drive a new drive letter. There's no place in the graphics rich and information deficient configuration to redefine the drive letter. This is just one example of reconfiguration problems. Another is the creative reporting of the drive status within the program. Another is the disk bashing the occurs when it repeatedly tries to backup a locked file. The file locking problem is critical because some programs (i.e. Lacerte tax prep software) does not bother to unlock the files until the program exits, resulting in a deluge of activity, and no real guarantee that work in process was actually backed up. I had to scribble a script that turned off Memeo backup for Lacerte, while Lacerte was running, and turn it back on after exit. Enabling versioning can result in a full disk drive without much warning. I'm sure there are other things I could complain about.

However, Memeo has one saving grace. It's reliable and does not slow down the client machine. One system (on a Buffalo 500GB something NAS drive) has had 4 machines doing continuous backups for about 5 years without any problems. I also had it running in my palatial office for about 6 months without incident, but sold the NAS drive and never bothered to replace it. Lacking a better product, I would use it again.

What is backed up into Documents, Videos, Other is based upon file extensions and can be configured in the program. I don't bother and instead have it backup only specific directories, which contain user created files. I'm careful not to backup anything else.

However, if this is all you do for a backup system, you're heading for trouble. The real work is in the time necessary to put Humpty Dumpty back together after a crash. What you have on the Memeo backup drive is insufficient and missing many important system files. Restoring Win 8.1 from the recovery partition, adding updates, reinstalling software, and finally restoring data from the Memeo backup directories, can easily take several days of elapsed time.

What you need is an image backup, which gets literally everything on the drive. I use Acronis True Image 2015 (about $50) and sometimes Clonezilla for image backups. Between image backups (about 1 or 2 months apart), Memeo takes care of anything that has changed.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
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Jeff Liebermann

Solution:

  1. Linux -> Ubuntu (Mint, etc) -> Virtualbox -> Windows

  1. Backup all vdi files to separate HDD or SSD

  2. My main XP.vdi takes 3GB. All critical files and programs (LTspice, XNews, etc) are stored on virtual drives D:\ amd E:\. Thay are immune to crashes on C:\

  1. Backup of main XP.vdi file only takes seconds, so it is easy to do often. This keeps the backup.vdi up to date.

  2. Crash -> This happens often with XP running some files like Flash. This can crosslink clusters on C:\ so files are garbage and unreadable. Program and data files on virtual drives D:\ and E:\ are not affected.

  1. Copy main XP vdi file from backup. This takes only seconds. You are up and running immediately. No fooling with config settings which you never get back the way they were.

  2. You are now back online. No need to reinstall OS and user programs. Panic is over. Back to work.

  1. You can configure system to automatically boot to Windows. Takes only a few seconds. User need never know he is running in virtual mode.

  2. There is no loss of speed running in a vm. Programs run exactly as if they were on bare metal.

  1. You can update the motherboard, video, sound, HDD, etc. without changing any MS config files. You can copy the vdi files to another computer with a completely different motherboard and hardware and the MS installation will never know anything has changed. MS is running on generic files which don't change. VBox is translating between the actual hardware and the generic files that MS thinks it is running.

Got ransomware? Piffle. Just copy your backup vdi files and you are up and running again.

Fingerfumble erased a critical file? No problem. There are many ways to recover it from the backup.

Running in a vm is the way to go.

Reply to
Goodwood

That's a good idea and is roughly the way I run my home computah. However, when I tried to inflict a VM on two office customers, I ran into problems.

  1. My commercial customers are lazy. That's not an insult, just an observation. If I add one additional step to their daily grind, they will howl in protest, claiming that I'm increasing their workload. To some extend that's true. For example, manually backing up a 1GB VM image file, takes about 7 minutes. An image backup to USB can do
1GB/minute for USB 2.0 and 3-5 GBytes/minute for USB 3.0. The VM copy method is usually perceived as tedious (by comparison) with associated complaints of downtime, overtime, wasted time, etc.
  1. Copying large files is not reliable. I've had a few VM backup failures (fortunately at my house) where something interfered with the copy and the backup ended up corrupted. So, I have to run a crc or checksum on the original VM and the copied VM to make sure they're identical: This takes some time. If it fails at the end of the day, the entire VM copy and verify needs to be repeated, which usually means overtime. Image backup programs do better. Even if there are errors found during restore, the various image backup programs can be instructed to ignore errors.
  2. Many users are VERY lazy about doing backups. I used believe that nobody does backups unless they have previously lost data. Now, I'm beginning to see complacency, where even users that have had multiple disasters, still refuse to do backups.
  3. Automatic backups and VM copy systems work, but only if the users remember to logout of the main application and/or close the VM. Backing up a live VM has not been reliable. Booting directly into the VM has resulted in users never unmounting the VM.
  4. Backing up the base operating system (Ubuntu or whatever) was a problem because it required booting from a Live CD and running Clonezilla from the command line or script. I also got tired of updating an OS that the users never really saw or used.
  5. One customer uses some expensive custom software and has to run some antique tax software. Something like this: Software support was reluctant to deal with a VM and would constantly blame every problem on the VM.

... and so on with more minor issues. Oddly, the customers where I've imposed a regime of running a monthly image backup, with a Memeo style continuous backup, have had few disasters. However, that might also be due to my preemptive HD replacements every few years.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
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Jeff Liebermann

Then do backups on USB! I run SSD on RAID0 and get about 440 MB/s. This drops considerably when I back up to a 1 TB Western Digital HDD, and drops even further to 65 MB/s on a 1Gb LAN.

If you are getting errors, your main installation has a problem and needs to be fixed. My vdi files are 3GB, 22GB and 30GB. I used to run EXT3 and got errors on those files. After I switched to EXT4, the errors disappeared. I do not recall ever having an error reading or writing to SSD, HDD, or LAN on EXT4.

They will have other problems as well. Charge them for fixing them.

I am very sceptical of automatic backups. They will happily back up corrupted files (crosslinked clusters on XP) and destroy your backup. I use the daughter, father, grandfather approach where the current backups are moved one level up in the chain. The only problem this causes is the discipline needed to maintain it on three different systems: SSD and HDD on my main computer, and SSD, HDD on the LAN backups. This is a lot of work and I often don't take the time to do it properly. This has caused severe problems when I needed to go back one or two levels to find a file that I have screwed up. The problem is reconstructing the backup levels. I haven't figured a good way to solve the problem, mainly because it doesn't happen often enough to rise above the background noise of issues that need solving.

I run Ubuntu 10.04, which is now obsolete so there are no updates. This is no problem because I never use it to go on the web, so it is never exposed to malware. It only acts as host for VirtualBox to run XP.

When I do want to do a reinstall, I use a special CD that allows RAID0. This formats the root directory but leaves the home directory intact. So all the vdi files and configuration are never touched. I run two bash files to install a bunch of utility files and Samba for the LAN. The whole thing takes about an hour, but most of it is sitting waiting for downloads to complete. I can do other things while this is ongoing, so I usually end up making some sandwiches and having a bite to eat. I rarely do this until I am ready to collapse from hunger, so a reinstall is actually healthier.

Give him his own dedicated computer and charge him extra for the time and work needed to maintain it. If he can afford expensive custom software, surely he can afford the very reasonable fee you will charge to keep it running.

"Easy Installation Instant Backup is our simplest out of the box backup solution. Set up is easy - just one click to get your backup plan in place. After initial setup, the files and folders on your desktop will automatically be backed up every time a file is changed." Or corrupted, or fumblefingered, or ransomwared. I tend to stay away from automatic backups. If a user is not intelligent enough to back up a file when it is known good, they deserve to lose it regularly.

Reply to
Goodwood

I am having problems understanding your numbers. What VM were you running?

I get 440MB/s on VirtualBox 4.0 running SSD's on RAID0. That's 440*60 =

26,400 megabytes per minute.

If you are getting 3-5 GBytes/minute for USB 3.0, that's about

26,400 / 5 = 5,280 times slower than I am getting on VBox.

I get around 165MB/s copying from SSD on RAID0 to a single WD 1TB HDD.

That's 165*60 = 9,900 megabytes per minute. I get about the same transfer rate copying from a 1TB WD to another identical 1TB HDD on VBox.

For HDD copy, a 1GB file should take 1e9/165e6 = 6 seconds, or one-tenth of what you are getting on USB.

If you gave your users these kind of speeds, they would have no complaints about backing up on a vm.

Reply to
Goodwood

VMware Player 6.0.7 on 32 bit Windoze XP. The later versions are 64 bit only. Since the customers office was a mix of 32 bit and 64 bit machines, and since they expected to be all 64 bit within a year of the initial installation, I decided to try 32 bit first, and later switch to 64 bit. Performance was much better on the 64 bit machines, but I didn't run any comparison benchmarks.

Thanks for the benchmarks. Numbers are always a good thing to have before making decisions. I have a dim view of RAID and avoid it where possible. However, for improving write performance, RAID 0 striping is one are where it's worthwhile.

My numbers come mostly from running image backups using Acronis True Image 2015: I've used various mutations of the program over the years and find it to suck less than the other backup programs. It has a long way to go before I would consider it better than tolerable, but since the others are worse, it's what I use and recommend. About $50.

The program will backup a Linux partition, but is mainly a PC (or Mac) program. On typical dual core machine, it create an image backup to USB 2.0 and 3.0 at the speeds I mentioned. I can do a backup run today (at home) to verify the numbers. I don't have numbers handy for just plugging in a USB drive and simply making a copy of a 20GB VM file. As I recall, it takes much longer.

I'm in the process of sloooowly converting many machines to SSD. (I'm doing a neighbors laptop today). However, that doesn't seem to improve backup performance much, because the limiting factor is the USB 2.0/3.0 interface. I can probably obtain blindingly fast speeds, as you mention, if I used SATA III 600 MBytes/sec drives, directly connected on a motherboard that supports it. I can probably do that on a server or power user desktop, but not on the mixed bag of laptops and mini-ATX based desktops. Upgrading all the equipment in the office to faster hardware is an option, but I would have difficulty justifying the expense based solely on backup speed.

USB 2.0 or 3.0 on the WD? Using what benchmarking program or timed copy? I use timed copy. EXT4 or NTFS? If you're really getting almost 10 GBytes/min copy USB to USB copy speed, that would be a big improvement of my existing system. I don't have two USB 3.0 drives at home, but I'll test it when I get to the office on Weds.

That's what I would think, but that's not what usually happens. Users consider ANY additional steps or time to be a major imposition to their lives. I'm faced with the choice of either an unreliable automatic backup, or a manual procedure that can be ignored, sabotaged, or mangled.

At one point, I had it down to all the user had to do was plug in a customized USB drive and a CD. AUTORUN.INF on the drive would start a batch file, that would close the major apps, log them out of the server, reboot from the CD, run the scripted backup/verify program, send me email, and shutdown. If it failed, I use turn on the machine remotely with Wake on LAN, and run it manually. It wasn't perfect, but when done correctly, it worked. That's when I discovered there were an infinite number of ways a user could screw up a simple procedure. For example, wrong CD, forget to close the CD drawer, plug the wrong USB drive into the machine, plug into USB 2.0 instead of

3.0, turning on the machine with the CD and USB drive inserted, etc. I gave up, for now.

Right now, a mix of image backups and Memeo seems to work. Memeo runs in the background, so only user sabotage is a problem. Image backups get done by me or some cluefull employee, usually on weekends. I keep an eye on things remotely. In other words, it's a simple solution that takes care of most of the problems. Adding a VM to the picture will only make it more complicated and probably less reliable, even if it's better and faster.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
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Jeff Liebermann

VMware should be pretty fast. I'm still having problems figuring out your system to understand why it is so slow.

Write AND read both improve dramatically. Boot times plummit. I have an identical set for backup and use the WD 1 TB HDD in case all else fails. But I hate to use it. It is so agonizingly slow (only 165MB/s)

They don't say how it works. Do you boot to a cd? Thanks for the info. I think I now have a clear idea how your systems work. I don't know if there is any way to speed things up except to go to Ubuntu and run Windows in Virtualbox. But as you have explained, your customers would revolt.

But for the security aspect alone, I would insist on it in my own company. You can completely isolate computers from each other so malware cannot get on the LAN and browse around looking for other computers to infect. Companies have lost fortunes and continue to do so by allowing malware easy access to their system.

All the numbers I gave are using the Nautilus file manager in Ubuntu. This copies the entire .vdi file from one disk to another. I rarely use USB since it is very slow on the thumb drives I have.

It's not just backup speed. You gain in everything. Boot times plummit. Opening programs is nearly instantaneous. Loading files is finished before you can take your finger off the button. Recall there is no seek latency in SSD. They just shove data into memory as fast as possible.

I started out with four 120GB SSD drives, then constantly ran out of space so I upgraded to 250GB.

I stacked the old 120GB drives in RAID0 so I could get some use from them and was so amazed at the performance that I got some more 250GB SSD's and put them in RAID0 also. This satisfied my need for space and speed. As I mentioned, I kept the 1 TB WD HDD's for backup, but I really hate to have to use them. They are so glacially slow.

The speed in RAID0 is very addictive. I consider it definitely worth the investment. I don't see any need to upgrade my computers for the next 10 or 20 years. There is no need to improve the performance.

No USB. That is very slow. All my numbers are the Ubuntu Nautilus File manager copying from one drive to another or to the LAN.

You did a remarkable job to get that automated! But I can see where a user would find lots of ways to screw up.

You wouldn't need Memeo or Acronis. A simple BASH file would copy the vdi files to the backup drive. There is no need to plug or unplug cables. The entire drive image is copied, and it would take a fraction of the time.

The BASH file could incorporate diagnostics to ensure everything goes right, and run MD5 or SHA to verify the copy. It could log everything so you have a record of the job, and shut down the computer when done. The user would have nothing to do and could go home.

The problem would be to get the user to log out of Windows and run the BASH file. Having a completely different operating system would probably blow their mind.

Then there is always the problem of how to handle corrupted files. If you back them up, you overwrite the good copy. An additional problem is the user may not be aware that any files are corrupted and merrily back up everything as usual.

But you have the same problem now, so nothing is changed.

Reply to
Goodwood

One thing I've noticed with Dell, at least for laptops and desktops: you can order a brand new machine from them, and when you get it, you can pop the lid and observe that the date codes on the parts are all from the last couple of months. Boot it and the BIOS will be version A03 or similar. Go look on Dell's web pile for that model number and the BIOS they offer for download will be at version A11 or so.

I understand that logistics mean it will take a little while for new BIOSes to percolate to production, but it shouldn't take *that* long. Sometimes I have installed the updated BIOS and usually either nothing is visibly different, or I get a couple of more BIOS setup options for esoteric features of the chipset.

I think the best improvement I ever got by upgrading the BIOS on a Dell was in the early 2000s, when the boot order improved from the old-style "A,C,SCSI", "C,A,SCSI", "SCSI,C,A" choices to the more recent style with three or four slots and choices of floppy, HDD, CDROM, and network for each slot.

Alternate idea: in a year, sell that user a newer used laptop with Win7. Copy their data from the Samsung SSD to the newer laptop, make sure the newer laptop works for them, and then drop the SSD in an envelope and mail it to Microsoft. This gives you all the new functionality of Win 10 without having to actually install it.

Matt Roberds

Reply to
mroberds

That's a ritual when I deliver a new Dell. It's not just the BIOS that's behind. Most of the drivers also require updates. I just go to: punch in the service tag number, and download everything that looks useful. I then waste at least an hour doing downloads and installing updates. Then, for video cards and network cards, I go to the manufacturers site for drivers that actually work. Dell is quite good at keeping drivers up to date, but is far from current.

Presumably, Dell would like to do some testing before releasing a new BIOS or driver. Hopefully, these are not "customer tested" which has caused me some grief in the past.

Read the release notes. Often the BIOS updates fix one minor problem. For example, the latest BIOS A17 for the ancient Dell Inspiron 1525 that I'm currently trying to beat into submission, changes: "Change pre-charge time out from 2hr to 6hr." Ummm... What's a pre-charge time out?

That went away when the BIOS configuration allowed mortals to select the boot order from a list, instead of predefined orders as handed down by the BIOS gods.

That might have worked 5 or 10 years ago. Today, the price difference between an obsolete refurbished machine and a new machine is insufficient to attract the attention of even the most cost conscious buyer. Given a few percentage points difference, they invariably favor a new machine. So, the most likely scenario is to buy a new Windoze 10 machine and clone the hard disk to an SSD. It's also a larger margin for me, less work for me, and generally results in a happier customer, assuming they can tolerate Windoze 10 without losing their lunch.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
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Jeff Liebermann

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