A year or more ago I wrote a quick blurb about a memory leak I saw in WD Smartware. Thankfully, WD has since fixed this issue. Other issues have also been addressed.
I’ve watched this incremental improvement of WD Smartware and have been generally pleased. Although I do not use this for backups, as I have other means, it is good software.
A few tips to users:
- You don’t need to use WD Smartware to use encryption. There is a stand-alone utility called ‘Unlock.exe’ on the ‘vendor’ partition of the hard drive. Simply run it to unlock your drive.
- For those that do install WD Smartware, but don’t use it for backup services, the background process WDFME.EXE may be slightly irritating because it perpetually is scanning for filesystem changes to categorize your files. You can simply terminate this background process if you don’t use the backup feature (if you do, then don’t terminate it). Automated termination utils, e.g. Process Lasso, can help do that every time it is found to be running.
- Make sure you stay up to date, as WD is constantly improving WD Smartware.
My primary backup drive is 1TB MyPassport SE. I love this little baby. It is the highest capacity external USB powered drive I have ever seen, and stands higher than most drives due to what I assume is a second platter. I use it for all my backups and it stays in my pocket. The hardware based encryption is simply excellent ;).
Generally speaking, you really can’t beat WD hard drives. I have tried Seagate several times over the years when I found a compelling deal. In every case I was very disappointed. Their internal drives sound like freaking birds chirping, or a jet engine ;p. Their external hard drives hide the noise with various noise suppression techniques in the drive enclosure. Their failure rate has been high for me, where-as I haven’t had a WD drive fail in many years. I can’t even remember one failing, and old ones I have from waaaayyy back when continue to be operational and in use.
Wow, I really sound like a brown noser ;p. I was just bored, figured I’d give credit where credit is due.
