What is going on with my hard drives?!?!?!

I recently installed Vista and I'm noticing something that I can't seem to
remember from XP. My hard drives are going crazy with activity at times
during which there really shouldn't be any activity at all. I happen to have
4 Raptors in a RAID0+1 configuration and they sure are noisy when they start
thrashing. I have 8 GB of RAM on the system so it shouldn't be the swap
file. However, it seems like 25% of the time, my hard drives are going
breserk with activity. Is there a tool which will allow me to break down
disk activity by process?

On 14 Apr 2009, =?Utf-8?B?U3RldmVuIERhdmlkc29u?=
<> wrote in
microsoft.public.windows.vista.general:

> Is there a tool which will allow me to break down disk activity by
> process?

System Internals/Microsoft's "Process Explorer":

<http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx>

Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Escape). Add I/O to the columns (View - Select
Columns) on the Process tab.

"Steven Davidson" <> wrote in
message news:912286C3-D2C8-4DC1-AC31-...
>I recently installed Vista and I'm noticing something that I can't seem to
> remember from XP. My hard drives are going crazy with activity at times
> during which there really shouldn't be any activity at all. I happen to
> have
> 4 Raptors in a RAID0+1 configuration and they sure are noisy when they
> start
> thrashing. I have 8 GB of RAM on the system so it shouldn't be the swap
> file. However, it seems like 25% of the time, my hard drives are going
> breserk with activity. Is there a tool which will allow me to break down
> disk activity by process?

If you just installed Vista, it's probably creating the index.


"Steven Davidson" <> wrote in
message news:912286C3-D2C8-4DC1-AC31-...
>I recently installed Vista and I'm noticing something that I can't seem to
> remember from XP. My hard drives are going crazy with activity at times
> during which there really shouldn't be any activity at all. I happen to
> have
> 4 Raptors in a RAID0+1 configuration and they sure are noisy when they
> start
> thrashing. I have 8 GB of RAM on the system so it shouldn't be the swap
> file. However, it seems like 25% of the time, my hard drives are going
> breserk with activity. Is there a tool which will allow me to break down
> disk activity by process?

On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:56:32 -0500, "DaveD" <> wrote:

>If you just installed Vista, it's probably creating the index.

Shut off indexing, you don't need it. Be sure to disable the process.
Install Agent Ransack for searching.

"Steven Davidson" <> wrote in
message news:912286C3-D2C8-4DC1-AC31-...
>I recently installed Vista and I'm noticing something that I can't seem to
> remember from XP. My hard drives are going crazy with activity at times
> during which there really shouldn't be any activity at all. I happen to
> have
> 4 Raptors in a RAID0+1 configuration and they sure are noisy when they
> start
> thrashing. I have 8 GB of RAM on the system so it shouldn't be the swap
> file. However, it seems like 25% of the time, my hard drives are going
> breserk with activity. Is there a tool which will allow me to break down
> disk activity by process?

Process Monitor will show all file and registry activity in real time.
It displays a lot of data very quickly. It usually records about
a thousand or more lines of data per second, but allows you to
grab and scroll backwards through the data.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb896645.aspx

"+Bob+" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:56:32 -0500, "DaveD" <> wrote:
>
>>If you just installed Vista, it's probably creating the index.
>
> Shut off indexing, you don't need it. Be sure to disable the process.
> Install Agent Ransack for searching.

Don't shut off indexing. It will soon be complete. It makes for quick work
when searching for files on your computer.

"Charles W Davis" <> wrote:

>
>"+Bob+" <> wrote in message
>news:.. .
>> On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:56:32 -0500, "DaveD" <> wrote:
>>
>>>If you just installed Vista, it's probably creating the index.
>>
>> Shut off indexing, you don't need it. Be sure to disable the process.
>> Install Agent Ransack for searching.
>
>Don't shut off indexing. It will soon be complete. It makes for quick work
>when searching for files on your computer.

Agent Ransack doesn't use the index.

Vista's search is freaking horrible.

yea, it’s a good idea to disable super fetch, indexing service and Windows
search

"Steven Davidson" <> wrote in
message news:859A8813-3C1C-48E6-A3AF-...
> I think I got to the bottom of the thrashing issue. It's the SuperFetch
> service. Apparently it preloads data into RAM based on past application
> use
> patterns. Since I have 8 GB of RAM, it probably loads a ton of data (like
> "World of Warcraft", perhaps) every time I restart the system.
>
> "Ian D" wrote:
>
>>
>> "Steven Davidson" <> wrote in
>> message news:912286C3-D2C8-4DC1-AC31-...
>> >I recently installed Vista and I'm noticing something that I can't seem
>> >to
>> > remember from XP. My hard drives are going crazy with activity at
>> > times
>> > during which there really shouldn't be any activity at all. I happen
>> > to
>> > have
>> > 4 Raptors in a RAID0+1 configuration and they sure are noisy when they
>> > start
>> > thrashing. I have 8 GB of RAM on the system so it shouldn't be the
>> > swap
>> > file. However, it seems like 25% of the time, my hard drives are going
>> > breserk with activity. Is there a tool which will allow me to break
>> > down
>> > disk activity by process?
>>
>> Process Monitor will show all file and registry activity in real time.
>> It displays a lot of data very quickly. It usually records about
>> a thousand or more lines of data per second, but allows you to
>> grab and scroll backwards through the data.
>>
>> http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb896645.aspx
>>
>>
>>
>>

I think I got to the bottom of the thrashing issue. It's the SuperFetch
service. Apparently it preloads data into RAM based on past application use
patterns. Since I have 8 GB of RAM, it probably loads a ton of data (like
"World of Warcraft", perhaps) every time I restart the system.

"Ian D" wrote:

>
> "Steven Davidson" <> wrote in
> message news:912286C3-D2C8-4DC1-AC31-...
> >I recently installed Vista and I'm noticing something that I can't seem to
> > remember from XP. My hard drives are going crazy with activity at times
> > during which there really shouldn't be any activity at all. I happen to
> > have
> > 4 Raptors in a RAID0+1 configuration and they sure are noisy when they
> > start
> > thrashing. I have 8 GB of RAM on the system so it shouldn't be the swap
> > file. However, it seems like 25% of the time, my hard drives are going
> > breserk with activity. Is there a tool which will allow me to break down
> > disk activity by process?
>
> Process Monitor will show all file and registry activity in real time.
> It displays a lot of data very quickly. It usually records about
> a thousand or more lines of data per second, but allows you to
> grab and scroll backwards through the data.
>
> http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb896645.aspx
>
>
>
>