Server HDD activity, processes

shorto · 02-09-2012, 03:02 AM

Hello all!

Recently my server has been acting kind of weird, at random times the HDD start growling like nobody's business when nobody should be on there. I apt'ed Mon but it only shows that the HDD is in use which I can hear by myself with no software

. So I was wandering is there something that will show me what process is making my HDD grawl, preferably with no kernel patches.

Cheers,
shorto

ukiuki · 02-09-2012, 03:27 AM

How about the logs is it generating too much logs ? Have you been watching the processes and do you have monitors for your HDD activity ? You probably already know but top, htop, conky and some other tools of the same kind can give you some info on fly about what is going on. I hope this helps.

Regards

chrism01 · 02-09-2012, 04:48 AM

Possibly vmstat http://linux.die.net/man/8/vmstat & see suggestions under 'See Also ..' at the bottom

syg00 · 02-09-2012, 06:03 AM

iotop if you happen to be on the system at the time.
collectl will keep the stats per pid and can be queried after the event. If it's not a process (kernel,interrupt handler, ...) things get more difficult. Check the easy stuff first.

SecretCode · 02-09-2012, 09:34 AM

For a quick and dirty, iotop is good - plus it does have a batch mode if you need to catch things happening before you can get to it.