Memset Memstore Fixed 50 review

Memset’s Memstore Fixed 50 offers 50GB of storage for a low monthly charge. If 50GB isn’t enough, it also offers 100GB and 200GB packages at £9.99 and £19.99 respectively. A pay-as-you-go option is available, where you pay for the storage you use on a sliding scale. At around 15p per GB of data you download (with uploads being free), it provides a low-cost way of moving into the cloud with minimal commitment.

Memstore can either be used as a simple file store, backing up important documents or files, or as an online collaboration space. With 50GB of storage to play with, you can create one or more “containers” (essentially a folder), and then add users via the simple web interface, allocating access to containers on a read or write basis.

It’s easy to access the files using the web interface or via FTP , but this ease of use comes at the cost of functionality. All the basics are there; you create folders, set permissions and upload files using a process that will be instantly familiar to anyone who has ever attached a file to a web-based email client. Where it falls short, however, is that you can upload files only one at a time, which becomes tedious to say the least. What’s more, uploads via the web interface are limited to 25MB. Also, while clicking on a file gives you the option to download, delete or rename it, these operations can only be carried out one at a time.

Luckily, these issues are addressed with FTP access. Using Windows Explorer, you can access files much as you would in Windows, and work with multiple files at a time. This makes Memstore Fixed 50 a more viable backup option. However, while FTP is relatively simple to use, we aren’t sure most staff would be comfortable using it. The product seems more geared to sysadmins than end users.

In terms of speed, Memstore Fixed 50 is decent: we uploaded 500MB of data in less than 18 minutes using FTP. Its low cost and option to pay-as-you-go could make it a decent proposition for a first step into the cloud, but there are more user-friendly alternatives available.