Help - SmartWare Freezing Computer

WD Software WD Software
1

I know there are similar posts but haven’t seen a solution that works.

WD Smartware has made my computer extremely slow and almost unusable by hogging the CPU even after the initial folder and file backups were successfully completed.  SmartWare and related processes are constantly using up to 85 to 98% of CPU according to the task manager.  I have a laptop with USB 2.0, Windows xp OS, 2 Gb Ram.  Just bought a My Book Essential 2 TB to use the advertised automatic backup, and installed the WD software then updated the firmware and Smartware to vsn 1.5.1.6.  - then the problems started.  Have set Smartware to run in the background.

WD Processes using the CPU concurrently are typically:

WDFM.exe = approximately 63% to 75% and higher

WDRulesEngine.exe = approx. 31 or more

WDSmartware.exe = 2% or more when idle

WDService.exe = 0% and higher

  1. How do I configure Smartware so as to stop constantly using so much of the CPU? 

  2. Can Smartware be set to run backups manually instead of automatically?

  3. What are all those etilqs…    files being created under the Windows Temp folder?  Some files are huge, the files build up and they don’t go away

  4. Can the program be configured to make full or incremental back-ups that show the back-up date?

As a customer and consumer, unless there is a fix available for the CPU usage problem, at this point I cannot recommend WD My Book Essential to anyone. Like so many customer posts have complained there is a significant problem with the product causing computers to slow to a crawl.  The WD external drive and backup software will make for a good Consumer Reports, CNet, PC Mag, etc. product review.  PLEASE fix.  Any help or solution anyone can provide is greatly appreciated.  Thanks.

2

In my opinion this so-called SmartWare is the biggest abomination to hit my PC in 20 years. No matter what I tried it hogged my memory and slowed the whole system to a craaaawwwllllll. I blew it away and downloaded Acronis free version. It was great. I then paid for Acronis True Image Home edition and it is magnificent. You don’t know it’s there - it seems to use almost no resources. It did a complete backup of my 200Gd hard disk plus a 300Gb external disk in about 4 hours, silently and while I was doing stuff on the PC. I have configured a real-time continuous backup of essential files and have scheduled regular daily, weekly or monthly backups of flash drives and laptops attached to my WiFi network. Run, don’t walk, to get Acronis!

3

Thanks for the suggestion!!  I’ll check it out because this SmartWare results in a big time slow down of my computer.

Somebody at Western Digitial should raise this issue to the executive level to get it fixed and mitigate further damage to WD’s reputation.