Disk Thrashing

[bvandew]

I've been running Vista Business since it was released. The last few days, I
have noticed the hard drive is being accessed almost continuously, even with
no applications open. There is nothing taking up excess RAM or CPU cycles
according to Task Manager. I made a few changes to the indexed locations a
few days ago, but nothing drastic. The computer is on all night with nothing
running, but the disk is still thrashing. What might be causing this?

--Bruce

 

[Nicole & Tom]

I've been running Vista Business since it was released. The last few
days, I have noticed the hard drive is being accessed almost
continuously, even with no applications open. There is nothing taking up
excess RAM or CPU cycles according to Task Manager. I made a few changes
to the indexed locations a few days ago, but nothing drastic. The
computer is on all night with nothing running, but the disk is still
thrashing. What might be causing this?

--Bruce

It is probably defragging the disk. Vista does this once a week by default.

 

[Bobby]

You can get around this by scheduling a weekly defrag.

I leave my PC on overnight once a week (a Saturday night) when I schedule
various weekly tasks - such as defrag, spyware (defender) full scan, backup
etc.

 

[Paul-B]

I've been running Vista Business since it was released. The last few
days, I have noticed the hard drive is being accessed almost
continuously, even with no applications open. There is nothing taking
up excess RAM or CPU cycles according to Task Manager. I made a few
changes to the indexed locations a few days ago, but nothing drastic.
The computer is on all night with nothing running, but the disk is
still thrashing. What might be causing this?

--Bruce

Vista.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

It would be the indexing. Defragging alone cannot explain what you
describe. In any case, the defragger runs once a week in the wee hours and
for a limited time. It does not attempt to completely defrag the system
before shutting down. You should not see it working during typical work
hours.

 

[Rock]

I've been running Vista Business since it was released. The last few days,
I have noticed the hard drive is being accessed almost continuously, even
with no applications open. There is nothing taking up excess RAM or CPU
cycles according to Task Manager. I made a few changes to the indexed
locations a few days ago, but nothing drastic. The computer is on all
night with nothing running, but the disk is still thrashing. What might be
causing this?

Open performance monitor. Click the start orb, type per and Reliability and
Performance Monitor should appear at the top of the list. Run it and in the
right pane expand the disk section. You can sort by Writes and see what
processes / files are accessing the disk.

 

[MrMikeH]

I had the same problem and it was the defrag. There is an option to turn off
the automatic defrag, which I set and haven't had the problem since.