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View Full Version : What Process is Thrashing My Hard Drive?


Jason Dunn
07-25-2004, 09:44 PM
Have you ever watched your hard drive light come on, and stay on, and wonder what's causing it? Well, I wonder the same thing and I'm putting out a call to the DMT community: does anyone know of an application, freeware or otherwise, that actively scans the processes that are accessing the hard drive and would tell me what's going on? I know I can look at the process tree, but CPU usage and hard drive access aren't always linked. I'm looking specifically for a program that would tell me what process or application is reading/writing data to the hard drive, and perhaps even how much data and where it's going. Anyone heard of an application like this?

Suhit Gupta
07-25-2004, 09:53 PM
First - it is really funny you use the word trashing and not thrashing. :) Because trashing is really what thrashing ends up doing.

Anyways, you can always go to your Task Manger and turn on more stat columns and some of the columns I like are the I/O writes and I/O reads which really tells you a lot about the applications you run and how much they talk with the disk.

Finally, do you run Picasa? I have found that if you turn on the always scan/seek mode, sometimes (though this is rare) it will refresh its search.

Suhit

Jason Dunn
07-25-2004, 10:10 PM
First - it is really funny you use the word trashing and not thrashing. :) Because trashing is really what thrashing ends up doing.

Heh heh...that was actually a glitch on my part - I meant to write trashing. ;-)

Anyways, you can always go to your Task Manger and turn on more stat columns...

Well I'll be damned! I never knew that was an option - look at all that juicy data! :-) Thanks Suhit!

KidKomputer
07-25-2004, 11:51 PM
Page Faults is the one most closely linked to HD usage. IO read/write also covers network and maybe ram.
EDIT:
If it only happens once and a while it may be XP optimizing your drive

backpackerx
07-26-2004, 12:07 AM
So, what was it?

Jason Dunn
07-26-2004, 12:22 AM
So, what was it?

Oh, this wasn't one thing in particular, it's just something I've always wondered about with difference machines and programs. :-)

Ed Hansberry
07-26-2004, 12:43 AM
I XP will do this when optimizing for the prefetch cache.

Filip Norrgard
07-26-2004, 08:08 AM
I often click on the CPU column in Task manager to see which task is eating cereals (read: accessing the hard drive like mad ;) ). This sorts the most active processes to the top at every refresh, so you might want to change the refresh intervals to something else than realtime. (Otherwise you won't be able to see which processes are active)

Sometimes, I even run freeware Process Explorer (http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml) -- a very feature-rich task manager -- to examine the processes a bit closer and look at which files they are opening and closing. It might be worth a look into on your side. :)

darrylb
07-26-2004, 08:53 AM
I often click on the CPU column in Task manager to see which task is eating cereals (read: accessing the hard drive like mad ;) ). This sorts the most active processes to the top at every refresh, so you might want to change the refresh intervals to something else than realtime. (Otherwise you won't be able to see which processes are active)

Sometimes, I even run freeware Process Explorer (http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml) -- a very feature-rich task manager -- to examine the processes a bit closer and look at which files they are opening and closing. It might be worth a look into on your side. :)

Process Explorer is a very good application - Jason, I also suggest you take a look at this. You may also want to try FileMon from the same website (www.sysinternals.com). It can tell you exactly which files are being accessed by which application at any given time.

Both of these apps are real eye openers to use. :D

Felix Torres
07-26-2004, 01:54 PM
If you have MS Office installed, the indexing system can eat up a ton of idle CPU cycles as it searches your drive and indexes your documents.

XP has built-in auto-defrag that also cause otherwise idle systems to run the HD. After all you don't really want it doing it when you are busy, right?
So it could be just XP cleaning up after you. :)

Jason Dunn
07-26-2004, 02:52 PM
Thanks for the suggestions guys!

Janak Parekh
07-26-2004, 03:48 PM
If you have MS Office installed, the indexing system can eat up a ton of idle CPU cycles as it searches your drive and indexes your documents.
I believe Office 2000 and later no longer turn this on by default.

XP has built-in auto-defrag that also cause otherwise idle systems to run the HD. After all you don't really want it doing it when you are busy, right?
So it could be just XP cleaning up after you. :)
I'm almost sure it's this. Jason, if it primarily happens when you walk away from the keyboard, it's very likely XP building its prefetch cache.

--janak

Jason Dunn
07-26-2004, 06:12 PM
I'm almost sure it's this. Jason, if it primarily happens when you walk away from the keyboard, it's very likely XP building its prefetch cache.

Nah, it happens when I'm working, which is why it bothers me. ;-)

klinux
07-26-2004, 10:27 PM
It is the XP's own (useless) indexing service that is most likely casuing. In case if you do not already know, I go to http://www.blackviper.com/ to learn about the unnecessary services I can turn off on XP.

But to directly answer your question, I too am not ware of any program that measures which programs are actively reading/writing to the disc. I imagine OS is doing most of that unless you are working with a large file (phot0graph, movie, etc).

Suhit Gupta
07-26-2004, 11:37 PM
But I believe (in fact I am quite sure) the Indexing service is off by default and one has to explicitly turn it on.

Suhit

Ed Hansberry
07-27-2004, 12:43 AM
But I believe (in fact I am quite sure) the Indexing service is off by default and one has to explicitly turn it on.

SuhitIt is off by default. That isn't it always, though it can contribute. I get the thrashing anyway.

fireman2850
07-28-2004, 04:48 PM
XP's indexing service comes enabled from install. It is one of the biggest memory, cpu, and hard drive hogs of the native XP services. It is supposed to only run when your computer is idle but believe it or not, some Microsoft products don't always work like they are supposed to. :D

You can disable indexing service by going to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services and then finding the "Indexing Service". Double click or Alt-Enter on it and set it to disabled. This will stop alot of the churning that goes on, especially unattended hard drive use and will give back a few MB of memory too. There are other services you can disable that will free up even more memory without any detremental effect. Blackviper.com, that was mentioned earlier in this thread, has a good how-to on it.

Hope this helps.

(edit) P.S. Anytime you install a service pack and possibly some critical updates, Indexing Service will be re-enabled and you will have to disable it again.

Suhit Gupta
07-28-2004, 05:12 PM
XP's indexing service comes enabled from install.
I disagree. I have installed XP several times now and I gave always had to enable it explicitly. So I just looked it up and here is what Microsoft had to say - http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkc_fil_gglv.asp - "Indexing Service is disabled by default. For more information about enabling Indexing Service, see Windows XP Professional Help."

Suhit

gry
07-28-2004, 08:35 PM
I'm still mostly running win2k and linux, but I use the following resource cd tools:
ptree.exe
Allows you to query the process inheritance tree and kill processes on local or remote computers.

pulist.exe
Lists processes running on local or remote computers.


Usually a virus, worm, or spyware may take over your machine, if so you may want to try these tools to see what it's trying to talk back to:

http://foundstone.com/

Fport v2.0
Identify unknown open ports and their associated applications.

Vision v1.0
Reports all open TCP and UDP ports and MAPS them to the OWNING process or an application.

Pasco v1.0
An Internet Explorer activity forensic analysis tool.

Roosterman
07-28-2004, 09:37 PM
I would have to agree with fireman2850 in that it is most likely the indexing service. Even though it may be turned off by default, when you first setup XP, they ask in a very nice way if you would like to turn it on to make your searches must faster. It doesn't have that great of a positive effect IMO. Also, once it starts, there seems to be no way to make it stop, outside of Task Manager, until it is finished. I got so sick of it, I turned it off.

tasi
07-29-2004, 02:23 PM
I use an application called Desktop Sidebar (http://www.desktopsidebar.com), they have a customizable panel available that show's performance stats like usage indicators for CPU, Memory, and Disk access. It can also show the most active application in regards to CPU and disk access.

I have sidebar running all the time, so it comes in handy to find out what process is slowing down my PC if things start acting wierd. :?

T.