WD SmartWare using too many resources

Hi, I have the latest version of this backup software. I am not very happy with it, I have to say. I’ve finally gotten the latest version working, after having had to wipe and re-do a 90GB backup a couple of times (initially it took 2 days, with the latest software it only took most of one). I’ve mostly taken to dragging and dropping what I want backed-up onto the drive, and I don’t intend to use the built-in SmartWare software for backups more than once every six months or so. Unfortunately, there’s huge overhead just leaving the SmartWare software on my PC, it seems. When I go to reboot my PC, the reboot time with WD Smartware installed, even without the external HD connected, is at least double what it was previously. I have to sit there waiting for literally five or more minutes for WD Smartware to do “something,” which is not at all clear, after a reboot. I’ve also noticed in Task Manager (Windows XP SP3) that with the WD Smartware installed, upon boot the WDFME.EXE process (aptly named, I think… joke there) will take up to 50% of my CPU resources well after boot, for at least 10 minutes after boot, and this same process takes up to 130MB of RAM (not hard drive space… silicon RAM), and only gradually over time drops down to about 40MB of RAM, resident. Once CPU resource hogging has dropped to 0%. I would like WD Smartware not to take up so much of my RAM while my computer is running; it’s the most RAM-hogging process of all the processes running on my computer, by a huge margin, for what purpose… there is no explanation from WD, in the help or anywhere else. It’s bad enough that I have backup software that is required to stay on-disk, that is required to be installed to use the disk at all, but for this software to hog a significant amount of my computer while it’s doing nothing… I feel like I’m back in 1982. Please, WD, update this software so that it takes itself out of the way once you’re not using it. Using “Exit WD Smartware” does nothing to solve the problem. SIGH. I’ve read all the many other grievances against this software on this board, and don’t want to waste my or anybody else’s time posting, but this is really an unprecedented disaster, in my experience, with recent software. Surely WD can do better than this? I’m loathe to buy any WD hardware or software again in the future – I use WD drives on my PC, but if I ever have to replace them, it’ll be some other company’s. I’m very sorry to see this; I hope WD will solve the problem sometime in the very near future.

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Unfortunately I have the same problem on my Win 7 :frowning:

What I’d like to know, from WD, if there’s any kind of representation here, is whether it’s possible to completely uninstall WD Smartware after doing a backup with it, without destroying your ability to retrieve the backup on the “MyBook Elite.” If so, that’s what I’d do: install the software, backup, uninstall the software, rinse and repeat. There’s no info on this from WD in their minimal help though, unfortunately.

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I’m not technical support, but I can give you a couple of recommendations:

  1. Make sure that you have .NET 3.5 framework installed before attempting to install the newest version of SmartWare.
  2. If that’s the case then uninstall Smartware, re-download the newest version on our website and reinstall it.
  3. Reboot once the install is complete. 

Let me know if that helps, and which one.  If not, I’ll escalate to product people.

Hi Bill,

I appreciate your replying, and understand your role, no worries.

Unfortunately, I’d had NET 3.5 Framework (and all latest updates) installed prior to installing latest WD Smartware, the problem exists with NET 3.5 installed and 1.30.16 installed with NET 3.5 already in-place.

There are a number of WD processes eating up significant amounts of RAM, not just WDFME.EXE (that’s the largest RAM-consumer), and unfortunately that along with the ongoing performance overhead, and delays during shutdown and restart induced by the presence of WD Smartware, are all sufficiently intrusive for me to have decided to prefer to have WD Smartware entirely off my PC at this point.

If there are improvements in future versions, where, for instance, I can manually choose to start up or unload WD Smartware, and NOT have it self-loading at boot-up, and can manually choose to completely unload it (without having to uninstall it) so that none of its processes are resident in RAM memory, allowing me to shut down quickly if I need to, I’ll take a look at the software again.

I can understand why for the general user WD might want to simply have the program resident and running, to make it as “plug and play” as possible; unfortunately for me, that approach creates an unacceptable extra load on my system that I have no control over at this point.

Thanks for your attention.

Steve

I’m not sure if I understood whether you want to get rid of SmartWare or just disable it, but if you don’t want SmartWare, you can uninstall it.  You don’t have to use it.  It’s really not for everyone.  SmartWare is not necessary for using the drive.  You can choose to manually drag and drop, or use Windows Backup Utility to do one-time or scheduled backups.

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Well, I can answer that for myself. I would like to use the software, but the overhead is outrageous, period. I am running it in a VM. It is taking up an entire CPU constantly. What gives? That is poor application writing.

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same feeling as mr Steve, even if I am not using/connecting the Passport SE drive, I still have to wait extra time for the

Smartware doing its smart thing at the computer startup.

 I do not want to use smartware for backup, but I still want to use its security function (eg.secure my passport SE drive  by a password) , I received an answer today from WD tech Support saying that I just need to uninstall the Smartware, then the

Passport SE still have its security function…I am confused, I thought after removing the Smartware then …no more Smartware, no more password function…Please tell me if the WD Tech is right ?

Thanks

Perhaps a better solution is not to use Smartware at all, instead perhaps you may consider using  Acronis WD edition, which  is a free down load,

I use it on my WD Passport 500gb drive, without any problems, it need not use any resouces at all ,  you can choose to do incremted or full back-ups in windows or DOS, you can mount   your image files and extract any of the contents at will.

It works with any WD drive regardless of type, this indeed WD best kept secret…until now that is.

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Tony33 wrote:

same feeling as mr Steve, even if I am not using/connecting the Passport SE drive, I still have to wait extra time for the

Smartware doing its smart thing at the computer startup.

 I do not want to use smartware for backup, but I still want to use its security function (eg.secure my passport SE drive  by a password) , I received an answer today from WD tech Support saying that I just need to uninstall the Smartware, then the

Passport SE still have its security function…I am confused, I thought after removing the Smartware then …no more Smartware, no more password function…Please tell me if the WD Tech is right ?

Thanks

If you want to use the security feature, set the password from SmartWare, then uninstall it.  Everytime you turn on the drive the VCD carries the utility to unlock the drive if security is enabled.  You won’t need SmartWare unless you want to get rid of the password, or change the label (if your drive comes with a label). 

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Hello everybody,

unfortunatelly I noticed the same problem. The process named WDFME.exe (WD File Management Engine) is taking over 10% od CPU slices, which I find on my notebook’s Core2Duo processor overhead for any service running in background. Even on some situations I caught this service taking almost 50%(!!!) CPU which is unacceptable for me.

So I wanted to ask what this service exactly is doing and what do I lose if I switch it to manual start. Only consequence observed without this service running is SmartWare status icon not working.

Is this service required for myBook drive proper operation and background temperature monitoring, or is that performed by the hard disk self??

Anyway I would expect any explanation from WD since ~50% CPU is really too much.

I have just encountered the same exact problem about the following WD files

wdfme.exe suddenly sucking up my cpu

I have been using smartware with my passport se 1tb for some time, but I just downloaded the updated software for my home edition 2tb.  This is when I began having the problems

I just uninstalled the home edition stuff, but it did nothing to stop the wdfme and others showing up in resource monitor.

I have all the latest software updates mentioned in these posts.

I will now uninstall the smartware for my SE, restart, and see what happens.

If all is well, I will reinstall the smartware for the passport SE, but not the home edition.

I hope that will return me to normal.

I did not notice any other work arounds.  It is too bad that these backup utilities are so unstable.

Thanks for all of your advice.

I just began having the same cpu resource problems with smartware after installing the anywhere back up for my home edtion 2tb.  What a nightmare.  I just lost a few hours fighting with it.

Thank you for this suggestion.  I will give it a try.  I prefer to have one WD software solution for my various outdated WD external hard drives.  I hope it works for me like it does for you.  Cheers

I just encountered the same situation after installing the anywhere backup for my home edition 2tb.  I will some of the suggestions mentioned here.

Thanks for everyone’s help.

Now I cannot access my My Book Home edition!  I have 1.5 tb of data and I cannot access it!

Help!  Has anyone else run into this problem?  Any solutions?

Well, the cpu issue is no longer a problem.  However, I can no longer access my My Book Home Edition drive.  Yikes. 

An error message asks me if I want to format it.

Device manager shows it as if it were not formatted.

Does anyone know how I can get it to be accessible again?

It does show up in mycomputer/manage/device manger.

I am running Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit and had NO problems until I installed the anywhere back up for this.

I have same problem. WDFME.exe using too many CPU Usage at start-up

I want to uninstall it but how can I use wd elite LABEL with out WDSmartWare?

WD customer service sent me Answer ID 1164 in response to my lack of access described above.

Indeed, it did not work on another computer.

Indeed, the cables and power adapter are functioning properly.

Indeed, the WD software update destroyed my partition and now I will have to spend +$300.00 to recover my data. 

I installed and ran the DLG as instructed.  After about 13 hours, it crashed and left me with the following information.  I was unable to copy the table that had specific information about the sectors.

Test Option: EXTENDED TEST
Model Number: WD My Book
Unit Serial Number: WD-WCAVY0400141
Firmware Number: 1028
Capacity: 2000.40 GB
SMART Status: PASS
Test Result: FAIL
Test Error Code: 08-Too many bad sectors detected.
Test Time: 06:56:54, July 14, 2010

Test Option: QUICK TEST
Model Number: WD My Book
Unit Serial Number: WD-WCAVY0400141
Firmware Number: 1028
Capacity: 2000.40 GB
SMART Status: PASS
Test Result: PASS
Test Time: 07:06:52, July 14, 2010

After this, I ran a system recovery point before I updated the WD software.  I figured that I could not become better or worse off since the update had already damaged my My Book Home edition.  Indeed, it did not change the situation and left the problem as it stands.

I am not sure why I have to pay for the data recovery when this is WD software related…

If somone else has a different workaround, I would very much like to hear it.

I am really annoyed that WD let us install this nonsense software!

You guys here on the forum are trying to help and i am appriciative, but WD have done nothing to help me since i called them about this, next time i will buy a seagate or something else with better software!

I am frustrated and annoyed, spent the whole weekend trying to fix this!

RM

Nononsense wrote:
(…)

I am frustrated and annoyed, spent the whole weekend trying to fix this!

 

RM

Courage my friend, many of us simple WD users are as frustated and annoyed as you are. Spent 2much time working out some fixes for this stupidware and finally I gave up. Don´t want to think about losing my data, oh no. 

Please don´t KUDOS me. I am just a normal being.