Developed by Microsoft Corporation, smartdrv.exe is the process file for SmartDrive, a disk caching program which intercepts the system calls to its hard disk in order to control read and write accesses to the disk. The SmartDrive.exe process tracks hard disk calls and launches the required data into the cache SmartDrive establishes in the Random Access Memory. Subsequent hard disk calls are intercepted by the SmartDrive.exe that scans requested data cache. If the cache contains data, SmartDrive accesses it directly in the Random Access Memory. If there is no data in the cache, the smartdrv.exe process will access the hard disk and will load the necessary data to the cache. Then the least recently accessed data residing in the RAM will be cached back into the hard disk to get ready for a new data. Through data loading from the hard disk into the memory, SmartDrive decreases call frequency to the hard disk, and dramatically speeds up repeated applications.

Most non-system processes that are running can be stopped because they are not involved in running your operating system. smartdrv.exe. is used by SmartDrive, If you shut down smartdrv.exe, it will likely start again at a later time either after you restart your computer or after an application start. To stop smartdrv.exe, permanently you need to uninstall the application that runs this process which in this case is SmartDrive, from your system.

After uninstalling applications it is a good idea to scan you Windows registry for any left over traces of applications. Registry Reviver by ReviverSoft is a great tool for doing this.

The ReviverSoft experts have not yet reviewed smartdrv.exe

A process usually a part of an installed application such as SmartDrive, or your operating system that is responsible for running in functions of that application. Some application require that they have processes running all the time so they can do things such as check for updates or notify you when you get an instant message. Some poorly written applications have many processes that run that may not be required and take up valuable processing power within your computer.

We have not received any complaint about this process having higher than normal impact on PC performance. If you have had bad experiences with it please let us know in a comment below and we will investigate it further.

The first thing you should do if smartdrv.exe. is causing errors on your computer is to run a Windows registry scan with Registry Reviver If you are still seeing errors after this you should uninstall the program that smartdrv.exe, belongs to, in this case SmartDrive