Vista -Loads of Hard Drive Activity

[Andaho]

I've had vista running for about 6 weeks now, and I've noticed that more often than not, the hard drive activity light is almost permanently on with activity... I've checked that it's not running a defrag, and apart from that I haven't got a clue what it's doing, and it's driving me nuts not knowing what it's doing!

----- EDIT -----

This is possibly not to do with Vista, but to do with hardware, skip to my latest post if you are new to reading this thread: http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.p...46#post1243246

[aidanjt]

It's indexing the files on your HDD. Fiddle with or disable indexing options until you get the desired balance.

[Andaho]

I've just read somewhere else on this subject that:

"the reason your hard drive is always working is because vista is collecting data and storing it in your ram, this data is comprised of the apps you usually run. vista remembers what u use and loads it into your ram ready. unfortunatly if you dont have enough ram and when you choose a differant app than is stored in your ddr then the data is moved back to your hard drive so as to free up the ram needed. you can stop all the hard drive activity by adding ready boost. this feature uses a flash drive to store the data instead of your hard drive."

That's an interesting suggestion huh?

Anyone else heard of this before and has any factual links for it?; Vista running better with a flash drive?

[Funkstar]

Unlike previous versions of windows, Vista will try to use as much of your memory as possible for caching etc.

I found this for the first couple of weeks i had my laptop, seems to have settled down now. Can't say how long it too exactly though. Although if it went and indexed all my photos and the Adobe Lightroom library, thats 20,000 files and 55GB right there.

[aidanjt]

Guys, it doesn't take long to fill up RAM, prefetching and caching doesn't take long, indexing on the other hand, does.

[Paul Adams]

Vista Tip:
Right-click the task bar, click Task Manager
Switch to the Performance tab, click Resource Monitor (UAC prompt as this is an admin task)
(Close Task Manager)
In Resource Monitor, expand the Disk section

Here you can see the most recently accessed files, which process instigated the I/O, the process' I/O priority, the response time, bytes/min read and written.
Very handy when looking at performance issues without needing to fire up PerfMon.

[Nox]

I had this - I did two things, and I can't remember which sorted it. The most likely one was disabling system restore, the other was something to do with disabling the user application shadowing thing. Think I worked out there was some sort of conflict between the two so doing either should of sorted it ~ don't know what I did to cause it tho...

Was very noisy with 2 raptors after a while.

Nox

[g8ina]

ffs dont disable restore !!

Right Click on all of your drives in Windows Explorer and UNCHECK indexing near the bottom, its really that simple.

[Shooty*]

Hmmmmm.... cool, I'll be trying that as well.

If you use ReadyBoody, that helps as well, I've heard (?)

[usxhe190]

ReadyBoost will only help if you have little RAM for vista (i.e. 512mb)

If you have lots of RAM (e.g. 2Gb), the cost/benefit is not that great...

[Nox]

ffs dont disable restore !!

Its usually the first thing i disable on XP... All my data is backed up across about 5 different hard drives scattered around the room. The minor performance increase vs something that won't save you when your hard drive dies anyway... and if it hasn't died, reinstalling takes... an hour, tops? and thats assuming you haven't got acronis and a recent back up onto something sensible anyway.

Nox

[Shooty*]

I'm with Nox on this as well, but it's down to taste and set up, innit?

3 usb drives with all important stuff (music, family photos, etc) on 'em, after we got burgled a few years ago and I lost all my photos in decent definition. Only have some of them in 352x240 PDA size now. Booo

[godsdog]

I'm with Nox on this as well, but it's down to taste and set up, innit?

yes, indeedy-doo. ...first thing I disable in XP also. ...and if you ever encounter a Windows ME system it's practically a mandatory requirement to turn system restore off.

[usxhe190]

the only thing I have found that System Restore helps is if you are installing new drivers and the drivers stuff ur computer up...

Other than that, it is pretty useless

[atmadden]

Does anybody else experience the really slow file copy bug too? It is soooo slow compared to xp!

[aidanjt]

This thread isn't about Vista's System restore or filecopying abilities, it's about Vista's HDD thrashing due to indexing & caching systems.