Continuing [WD Passport SmartWare Slows Computer to a Crawl]

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
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Continuing the discussion from WD Passport SmartWare Slows Computer to a Crawl:

Continuing the discussion from WD Passport SmartWare Slows Computer to a Crawl:

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The original thread is old, but there was no solution proposed and the problem still exists (that’s why I was looking for an answer in the first place).
Other external drives (like Seagate) sometimes create the same problem. I have found 3 solutions suggested online:

  1. Change router to 5.9GHz band (away from the common 2.4GHz bandwidth of wifi routers).
  2. Use USB2 port instead of USB3 port.
  3. Use different USB3 cable instead of the WD Passport cable.
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Hello, does this happens even if the Smartware is uninstalled from the computer? What operating system are you using?

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I have no desire to uninstall the Smartware. Been there, done that. Smartware has a purpose. Also since this is an issue with Seagate drives as well, Smartware would not appear to be relevant.

I’m running Win7 on PC with Intel i7, 8MB RAM.
The issue has been reported on both PC and Mac (I actually got the suggestions from a Mac site).
I have found that using USB2 port helps considerably. Haven’t tried the other two suggestions yet.