WD SmartWare using too many resources

This is insane.  WD is hosing my computer but I’m scared to uninstall anything at this point, given some of the comments.  UGH

If you ever have to actually use the back-up to recover files after a disk crash, this is exactly the condition you will be in: you will need to re-install the software to recover your files. This does work - I’ve tried it.  However, I think I will end up abandoning the software and just doing drag-drops, due to performance issues, as well as recovery problems with some files stored using the software.  I’ve found that WD SmartWare can lose metadata (making a file un-recoverable) or fail to back-up files with long names, without warning. This makes it completely unacceptable as a backup solution, from my point of view, regardless of how little resources it would consume.

2 Likes

Thank you for the workaround.  I, too, will not be using their software.  In fact, I have had consistent problems with WD drives above the 1tb portable, so I will not be buying anymore.

I am back with the results of WD induced problems.

The WD premium partners for data recovery included lab and software solutions.  Since I did not want to void my warranty with WD, I ended up chosing Data Recovery.com.

You can download their demo to verify that you will be able to recover your files.

Since my files showed  up in the demo version, I paid for the software to actually recover them.

I paid 100$ for SaveMyFiles Pro 2010 from www.datarecovery.com/

Now, I have all of my files back.  I would like to bill WD the $100, but they will not pay.

The website also has good advice about reformatting, recovery options, etc with different OS’s.  Since I do not know that much, it was great advice for the future.

Good luck to you.

I have 2 WD 1Tb drives. The first one was before smartware; the second came with it. Sometimes the smartware seems to be running on the first one too although I did not install it.

I had no problems at all with the first drive. When the new one came with smartware I thought it would help me with incremental backups from first disk.

I am finding that I actually have to unplug the second one or sometimes even both of them because it stalls out the bootup at either a blank screen or somewhere in the early process where ‘threading’ or something like that is starting.

I can plug one or both in after XP is fully booted, but why should I have to do this? Especially why won’t the first one start as it used to when the other is unplugged?

As I have just read this thread I found something new to worry ab out: uninstalling the software might damage my Backups!! Is that true?

and is there no way to do like an earlier poster said:

MrSteve

05-30-2010 11:35 AM

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.

I had several coustomers with older, slower systems make the same complaint.

Investigation revealed the primary cause to be HDD data-rate and access time, across all installations tested. While there were processor impacts, the low dispatch priority of SmartWare components cause it not to significantly affect overall system benchmarks. At issue is HDD performance,and thus contention.

In summary, doing nothing but stopping the WD File Managment Engine service resulted in an increase in the average effective data-transfer rate from 35.4 MBps to 58.0 MBps, a 66% increase in performance. Average access-time decreased from 17.8 to 13.1 ms, a 26.4% increase in performance.

Test bed is an AMD Athalon 3200 processor, 1 GB PC-3200 memory, 160 GB SATA-II drive, and Windows XP Pro SP3.

While this impact is less noticable on systems with ample processor power and memory, it is excruciatingly apparent on systems more constrained in resources.

I cannot find a way to post the comparative graphs here, but they are available, with commentary, on request.

Regards,

NetSmith

I also found the same problem with my Passport Essential 320G drive and the SmartWare software, on my Vista Business laptop. It was using spikes of up to 65% of CPU causing 100% usage most of the time and also 200 MB Commit Size. And that was with the software backup stopped and the drive unplugged! I uninstalled the software and reinstalled the drivers and now it’s just an external drive. I’ll just do manual backups or use some other software.

The sluggishness would be acceptable if it would only happen when actually running a backup, and if I could just turn off the WD file management engine as you say. But I don’t feel too comfortable stopping processes with the Task Mangler, unless I can be assured that it won’t cause instability of the system.

Brand new MyBook Essential 2TB just installed, software/firmware updated followed by a power-off reboot on everything, and my big, fast, watercooled computer came back up like it was stuck in the mud!  What’s up with this 50% to 65% CPU consumption on power-up?  I’ve begun recommending your MyBook units after one successful client install.  We sure didn’t see this problem with the 320 Passport the client selected. 

Same question as others have posted before.  Is this forum moderated by WDC, or is this area just for users to use for bitching and moaning to keep them off the phones?  At Seagate, I KNOW that forum is moderated, and this one should be, too, WDC!

c2biz wrote:

 

Same question as others have posted before.  Is this forum moderated by WDC, or is this area just for users to use for bitching and moaning to keep them off the phones?  At Seagate, I KNOW that forum is moderated, and this one should be, too, WDC!

 

The WD Community was created for Users, such as yourself, to help one another, and to share your experiences and ideas with one another. As Moderators, we are here simply to facilitate and oversee the community. If you have a question relating the what’s going on in the community, we will be happy to respond. However, if you are looking for technical support from WD, you will need to contact them directly.

To Contact WD for Technical Support
http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?lang=en

Thanks!

I also had this problem, and uninstalling SmartWare seemed to fix it. It wasn’t so much the CPU usage that was killing my machine, I think, but the >10,000 page faults per second. Yikes!

Dear moderators,

I understand that the moderators do not function as de facto tech support.  However, could you tell us whether, when there appears to be an issue affecting many users, you communicate this to the tech support team?  If so, could the tech support provide generic feedback about this issue and/or indicate if a technical bulletin or guidance may be issued about the problem?

Or, unless we individually contact tech support, are we destined to continue complaining to ourselves?

Thanks.

I work in the IT department at a good sized University - just a bit of feedback to WD that this new My Passport Elite with the added and MOST UNWANTED software VCD Manager is really a sad commentary on how people in management at WD can think customers would like this invasion of resources and install their ‘software’ without the option to delete the garbage !!! And there was no warning in big bright red letters on the box stating that the unit was coming with unremovable software that will plague you every time you plug it in !!!

I have always liked the older WD Passport units - any software could be deleted which I did - how sad that the suits decided to come up with this pile of horse droppings !!! Nothing like ruining the reputation of a good company with imbicile decisions like this !!!

RJL_WD wrote:

Dear moderators,

 

I understand that the moderators do not function as de facto tech support.  However, could you tell us whether, when there appears to be an issue affecting many users, you communicate this to the tech support team?  If so, could the tech support provide generic feedback about this issue and/or indicate if a technical bulletin or guidance may be issued about the problem?

 

Or, unless we individually contact tech support, are we destined to continue complaining to ourselves?

 

Thanks.

I absolutely do communicate consistent issues found here to our product people.  I don’t necessarily communicate them to the tech support team, because they need to be confirmed as valid issues, first.  Moreover, I won’t usually post that I’m doing this, because I’m only alerting others, and it usually takes time to see if it can be replicated as an issue.  If it is an issue.  

Concerning SmartWare, it’s a type of backup software that runs all the time.  So, it will use resources.  We’re always working to improve the software, but if it’s using too much of your pc’s resources then you need to do something different rather than let it run all the time.  This could be to pause it until you want to run the backup, or not use it at all.  In which case, you can uninstall SmartWare at any time.  You don’t need it to use your drive as an external drive.  I hope that helps.  Well, it’s an explanation, at least.

1 Like

I am now running a backup product from NCH software. I first became familiar with them when I purchased a voicemail program about 10 years ago. A few years ago I downloaded their free ClassicFTP program, which is excellent. And now I’m trying the free edition of FileFort, which is backing up to the WD My Passport drive. It’s using a lot of resources, but doesn’t seem to interfere with other processes I have running, such as this reply. You can get this product at: http://www.nchsoftware.com/backup/.

The only problem is that, when I plug in the drive, it tries to install the SmartWare software. If I could get rid of the CDROM partition on the drive, or delete the autorun.inf file, that wouldn’t happen.

I guess I can reformat the entire drive :wink:

Even if you reformat the WD MyBook or Passport, removing EVERY TRACE of Smartware, Windows will require a device driver to be able to access the drive.  Letting Windows search the MSoft driver library on the web for a driver, and guess what it will install. You got it, Smartware!  WD has “fixed” this family of backup drives so you cannot get away from the “not so smart” Smartware without doing some radical stuff.

There is a post on this forum by someone who says they found a way, and it’s pretty radical.  Here’s the link:

http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-Smartware/So-you-really-want-rid-of-SmartWare-Come-this-way/td-p/2135

bill_s wrote:


RJL_WD wrote:

Dear moderators,

 

I understand that the moderators do not function as de facto tech support.  However, could you tell us whether, when there appears to be an issue affecting many users, you communicate this to the tech support team?  If so, could the tech support provide generic feedback about this issue and/or indicate if a technical bulletin or guidance may be issued about the problem?

 

Or, unless we individually contact tech support, are we destined to continue complaining to ourselves?

 

Thanks.


I absolutely do communicate consistent issues found here to our product people.  I don’t necessarily communicate them to the tech support team, because they need to be confirmed as valid issues, first.  Moreover, I won’t usually post that I’m doing this, because I’m only alerting others, and it usually takes time to see if it can be replicated as an issue.  If it is an issue.  

 

Concerning SmartWare, it’s a type of backup software that runs all the time.  So, it will use resources.  We’re always working to improve the software, but if it’s using too much of your pc’s resources then you need to do something different rather than let it run all the time.  This could be to pause it until you want to run the backup, or not use it at all.  In which case, you can uninstall SmartWare at any time.  You don’t need it to use your drive as an external drive.  I hope that helps.  Well, it’s an explanation, at least.

 

  1. What does it mean to use the drive without using it as an external drive?  I can’t put it inside the cabinet of the PC – it’s not made for that, it’s too big.  Are you referring to another way to configure the use of the drive?  If so, where can I find info on that?

  2. You indicated “Concerning SmartWare, it’s a type of backup software that runs all the time.  So, it will use resources.”  I don’t understand.  What is the software doing?  And as far as I could tell, the earlier version of SmartWare didn’t function in this manner.

  3. If I click on  “pause” in the SmartWare interface, will the software stop and, most importantly, will the resources in my PC be freed up until I “un-pause”?

Thanks.

I think the only thing that prevents automatic installation of the “SmartWare” software is that I’m running Vista with user account control and it requires confirmation to proceed, to which I answer “Cancel”.

I have searched for other external drives and I found some from Seagate that are less expensive and have **optional** self-contained software. One person who reviewed the product also has a WD drive and he said there is a firmware update available from WD that makes the SmartWare optional. Here is a link to that review:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Seagate±+FreeAgent+GoFlex+1TB+External+USB+2.0+Portable+Hard+Drive±+Black/9929122.p?id=1218196480733&skuId=9929122

I’m going to contact WD and demand that I be allowed to return the drive for a refund, or get the firmware update if that will fix the problem.

IIRC, pausing the automatic backup in SmartWare does not reduce the use of resources by any appreciable amount. The WD drive works fine without the software and I just transfered about 2.5 GB in about 2 minutes, without compression or special backup file formats. The NCH Filefort software uses a BKZ format such that if you click it, the FileFort software asks if you want to restore the file. So I don’t really trust that. I’d rather have a standard zip file where I can use standard software to view contents and extract as needed.

Another thing I found alarming was that, apparently, with SmartWare, if you delete a file on your computer, it will also be deleted when the backup runs. This is really alarming! Caveat Emptor!

I just looked at the FAQ for my WD drive, and found a reference to how to disable the VCD (Virtual CD drive). I found the utility already installed on my drive, so I ran it and after cycling power to the drive it came up with only the external drive and NOT the SmartWare. I don’t really care about losing 500 MB or so on my 300 GB drive, and I saved a copy of the VCD manager so I can probably restore it if I ever want to use its features. The only downside, I think, is that you cannot use password locking of the drive.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=3835&p_created=1256946237&p_sid=BAqd7S9k&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_srch=1&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MTM3LDEzNyZwX3Byb2RzPTIyOCwxOTUsMzEyJnBfY2F0cz0mcF9wdj0zLjMxMiZwX2N2PSZwX3BhZ2U9MQ!!&p_li=&p_topview=1

OK, I guess I’ll just keep it and not fool with returning it. But I might buy another drive as a redundant backup. Maybe keep one in my car or elsewhere in case of fire or theft. And in case of a drive failure. It may also be good to backup really important files on CDs. And there are also many on-line remote storage facilities available. I recently opened an account at www.DreamHost.com to use for server-side scripting and hosting of my website. For about $35 I got unlimited storage space, a new domain name, email, web-based FTP, and a configuration optimised for WordPress, which is a CMS (Content Management System) that can be used to build a custom website with blogs, forums, and other nifty-cool items. But I’m “rolling my own”, using HTML, JavaScript, Perl, and SQLite (or MySQL).

I hope this helps! At least now I am happy(er) :smiley:

RJL_WD,

1)  You misread my quote:  “You don’t need it [smartware] to use your drive as an external drive.”  You can copy and paste directly into the drive without having to install SmartWare.  Or, you can use a third party backup software.

2)  SmartWare has always functioned like this.  There are files started up in your resources that run in the background to activate SmartWare to back up files every so often.

3)  It’s supposed to stop all SmartWare activity when you click on Pause.