How to disable hard disk thrashing with Vista

Hello all,

I have 64-bit Vista Premium and I'm getting disk access about every 5-10s. I've killed all the usual services associated with the disk, such as indexing, searching, backups, defender.

I'm attaching a snapshot of the disk use when the system is idle. There are only two processes active: PID=4 (vista kernel?) and PID=992 (Service host.) Under the service host there are only three threads:

AudioSrv (service=Windows Audio)
EventLog (service=Windows Event Log)
wscsvc (service=Security Center)

I've looked online whether I can disable any of these, and apparently they are required for normal operation.

My question is, has *anyone* managed to get Vista to be completely quiet? Having the disk thrash like this prevents it from ever going to sleep even though I have the idle timeout on it set to just 1 minute. The thrashing isn't very active, but the drive LED will just blink every 10s or so.

Thanks!

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Dec 13, 2007 UPDATE:

- No one has suggested any new solutions to this problem, but that's ok. Do a google search for "constant vista disk access" and you will see the problem is both widespread and seems to have nothing to do with the usual suspects (superfetch, readyboost.)

- I am hereby requesting that someone post proof of a Vista system with a completely idle HDD when the system is at Idle, perhaps ~10 minutes after boot. Run "perfmon /res" and take a snapshot of the disk access (press ALT-PrintScreen and cut-n-paste into your favorite grahpics program and save as JPG.) Be sure to expand the file column so that all names are fully exposed.

- If no such proof appears, I am further requesting that someone within the 90-day Microsoft warranty period open a ticket with MS. I bought my system back in August so I can't do it, but I'm hoping someone else cares enough to try solve this issue.

I'm convinced this is a Vista issue because the XP systems I use allow the disk to be idle once the boot is fully complete. The disk can then be allowed to spin down, resulting in power savings.

Thanks again!
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I have frequent trashing with Vista...No indexing, no Defender, no defrag,etc.

 

I've tried everything and to be honest one thing that's worked for me for some reason was changing the hard drive. On my desktop, as soon as I popped in a 7200rpm drive it stopped. Same with my laptop.. I used a 5400 for 3 months and everyday the hard drive would not stop churning.

I put in a 7200 and did a clean install.. after 2 days it was never thrashing.

 

I have a 7200 RPM drive

 

Isn't this supposed to be addressed in the SP1? I thought I read something that said it would help prevent the system from keeping the disk active.

 

SuperFetch???

 

If you really want to find out what is causing the disk activity go grab the two SysInternals programs filemon and diskmon. They will reveal EXACTLY what is causing the I/O.

Gary

 

I read that too. I hope it's true

 

Its true for Hybrid HDDs or for Turbo Memory systems, where there is a flash cache that allows HDD to stay powered down even when programs are writing some data to it.

Generally even if almost nothing is active, some system processes periodically write stuff to disk or registry, making it necessary to periodically flush data to disk (dangerous to keep it in RAM for too long), creating "rare HDD light blinking". Flash memory on HHDD or ITM eliminates this.

Also it seems to be power profile depending. Vista seem to siginificantly decrease the disk activity when power profile is set to "battery saving" mode.

 

Just an idea: The window in your snapshot is called "resource monitor" but mine is called "performance and reliability monitor" => did you install those performance and reliability patches from Microsoft? I can't remember exactly what they are, but if you google or search this forum you should find all about them easily.

I don't have HDD trashing, and it might be from one of these patches. Just a guess... Hope it helps!

 

My hdd is ALWAYS THRASHING!

it makes me sick, i have turbo memory, and a ton of ram, but it seem like the disk never stops spinning, i hope this gets fixed by sp1

ive tried terminating every user process, and a couple system processing to no avail

 

I too have the same problem and I am positive that it is the SuperFetch service at this point. For those who don't know, SuperFetch is a caching service that allows the system to "perform better over time". Look it up in your services.

My disk would get thrashed for the first 15 min after every Vista boot-up, and I noticed in my Task Manager that as it was doing so, my cached RAM was increasing and my free RAM was decreasing. The disk thrashing is most likely due to SuperFetch.

 

And how will those programs help? In my initial post I included a screen shot showing exactly what processes are performing disk writes and the associated file names (I ran a program called "perfmon /res" as recommended by some Microsoft MVP.) Diskmon certainly shows nothing except a real time log of every write. I used Sysinternals ProcessExplorer to find out what services remained inside the svchost PID.

So I already know what it causing the writes: either the Vista kernel itself or one of the three remaining services I listed (none of which I can remove without compromising my system.)

And yes, I have Superfetch disabled. I have everything disabled that people have mentioned, and even DHCP. None of it makes a lick of difference.

And yes, my system is patched to the hilt. Anyone have a specific patch in mind that fixes the thrashing issue? I have this patch installed, makes no difference:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=941649

 

The ONLY! time my disk thrashes is when i play sound eather from youtube videos or my collection from wmp and it slows my sistem down. If i play it at max volume my system will become unresponsive for a few seconds at a time. If i am copying files the tranfer rate gets cut in half if not more.

 

There is an existing patch for that issue. And SP1 has a big gain in network file transfer throughput.

Gary

 

I run Vista Home Premium, have PreFetch and SuperFetch enabled, and do not experience HDD thrashing.

 

Is the disk indeed completely idle? Would you mind posting a screenshot of your performance monitor showing the disk access over a period of ~10 minutes?

(I've also updated the initial post asking for more such screenshots, hopefully some more people will also step up.)

Thanks!

 

Uh, while my disk may not be COMPLETELY idle like you are asking for, it definitely does not mean it is thrashing or making any noise whatsoever.

Hard disk activity =/= audible disturbance. A completely idle disk would mean you aren't doing anything at all. Who cares at that point? I have absolutely no troubles with Vista's sleep or hibernate features.

 

Vita sp1 is supposed to fix some issues with HD activity.

 

With XP the HDD is completely OFF when the system is at idle.

With Vista, you have the option to have the disk turn off after an idle timeout period (eg. 1 minute, 5 minutes.) What good is that option if the disk is never idle for more than 20 seconds max?

Sleep works fine for me too, but I'm talking about the case when the system is awake but not doing anything. I care because I would like some additional battery life.

 

In my experience, the problem is with the ReadyCache service, and not Superfetch.

 

What is ReadyCache?

I've only heard of ReadyBoost, ReadyBoot and ReadyDrive:
http://vistahelp.blogspot.com/2007/04/readyboost-better-windows-vista.html

XP is looking better every day...

 

I also think that this is associated with the turbo cache and superfetch combined

 

I have a ThinkPad T61 with Vista Ultimate SP1 RC and 1GB Intel TurboMemory. I still have the constant thrashing. My university is flush with Vista computers, because of course everyone buys a new computer before going off to college, and every single one of them has constant HDD activity. Every bloody one. And unless something is changed in SP1 from RC to RTM, it doesn't fix the problem.

 

Hard disk thrashing only occurs on my notebook (vista ultimate) when I first start windows from a "cold boot". This is when superfetch is caching everything into memory this goes on for about ~2 mins. Once it is finished then hard disk activity goes back to normal (like how it was in XP). So to minimize this all I do is use sleep so that everything stays in memory, I hardly ever restart windows unless I have too.

So I am convinced that it is superfetch alone that is causing this as my notebook doesn't have any turbomemory and I don't use readyboost.

 

You've checked every one of them? Want to drive south on I-71 and see one that is NOT thrashing? Please be a bit more precise by what you mean as "constant activity". I am sitting here running SP1 RC1 on a Vaio FZ190 and only see a blink in the HD light once every 15-20 seconds.

Gary

 

I had a lot of issues with thrashing, random crashing of Aero (and reversion to the standard Vista interface), and some major issues when playing back Windows Media Player content in web windows and issues when plugging the computer in.

As of last night, and the latest Windows Vista update, all those issues are gone.

I don't know what Microsoft did, but their update improved my experience dramatically.

 

what did you do last night?

 

Microsoft pushed about 300mb of updates to my machine through Windows Update. Don't know exactly what was in the updates, but it made a dramatic difference.

BTW, I'm running Vista32, so I don't know if my comments are applicable to Vista64.

 

oh i see..yes i had about 200mb worth of updates a few days ago as well. I think it was the office sp1 that was the largest, others were just security updates

 

Last night I manually installed this KB patch from Microsoft:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=943899

On its own it didn't seem to make any difference (HD was still blinking every 5-10 seconds even after initial flurry of activity following a boot.)

I turned off prefetch using this Vispa tweaking utility:
http://vispa.whyeye.org/

Then I changed all my services according to Viper's 'Tweaked' settings that can be found here:
http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/servicecfg.htm

The only thing I left on Automatic that deviated from the Tweaked settings was the Auto WLAN management - without it my computer wouldn't even boot properly. (I don't remember the name, but it's toward the very end of the list.)

But now I can enjoy a full minute of NO disk activity whatsoever! (Crazy isn't it, I'm sure some Mac user out there is feeling pretty smug right now over all the pain with Vista.) With the Tweaked settings I can still do everything I normally do: browse the web, download photos from my camera, listen to music - the computer behaves well and is 100% usable.

I'm almost to my goal of having no HD activity at all. The only thing that's left is the write to lastalive0.dat and lastalive1.dat at 1-minute intervals. Anyone know what the heck that is? Examples can be found here, so I'm not the only one seeing this:
http://forums.microsoft.com/technet...2&siteid=17&sb=0&d=1&at=7&ft=11&tf=0&pageid=1
http://www.vistax64.com/vista-performance-maintenance/35069-lastalive0-dat-lastalive1-dat.html

 

Sorry, I thought you were trying to say that with Vista, the HD will make audible disturbance no matter what. How are you testing this? Are you just leaving the performance monitor open and then letting the system sit for however long you set until the disk should turn off? You say you want to gain battery life, but leaving the computer on without doing anything seems kind of odd. Why not just turn off your LCD or put you computer to sleep instead?

 

My hard drive doesn't make any noise other than the one at start up. I didn't tweak any service profile.

 

I'm not worried about the noise, but I don't want my hard drive to wear out from constant access and it is supposed to spin down and park itself if I have set an idle timeout in my power management profile.

That's exactly how I'm testing it. I open the tool with "perfmon /res", then expand the Disk section and let the system thrash around after booting it. After about 10 minutes activity tapers off and finally it becomes quite quiet. Until yesterday's tweaks the HD would perform an access at least every 5-10 seconds even when the system was at complete idle and powered up.

Yes, I do put my computer to sleep when I walk away from it and I'm happy with how the sleep works. I just don't want the hard drive chattering away unless there's a good reason for it (eg. virus checking, defrag, opening a program, downloading SW - anything that I have intentionally started or scheduled.) With XP you can expect the HD to also be in a complete idle state once the system has fully booted and I'm hoping I can coerce Vista to behave the same way. Otherwise there's no point in even having an HD idle timeout setting in the first place - the disk will currently never reach the point where the idle timeout would be effective.

Right now the disk behavior is the same whether I'm plugged in or unplugged. The fact that it still chatters once per minute after all my tweaking is mostly a concern when I'm unplugged. NOTE: I don't actually boot my system very often, perhaps every 2-3 weeks. Most of the time it's just sleeping on my desk when I'm away.

The daily use scenario I'm thinking of is when I'm reading news in the morning. Maybe I'm not on the machine for very long (~30 minutes), but I'm not really running anything and I'm just reading. I don't see why the HD should be active during that time.

I'm surprised more people don't think this is a problem and most haven't even noticed this. It's too bad Vista has some other cool features like the built in DVD burning SW or else I would have abandoned it already.

 

Would you mind posting a snapshot of your performance monitor showing the disk usage 20 minutes after booting your machine? I'll be very surprised if your HD is actually idle.

 

Heh, to me even 15-20 seconds is needless. I would definitely call that "constant activity". You're right there with the rest of us Vista users, albeit more satisfied than most

 

What kind of antivirus are you HD thrashers using? Is the a/v set to scan your system at intervals throughout the day?

Suggestion: Make use of Readyboost (4GB should suffice just nicely), make those pagefiles static (set to one number), and defrag those systems.

 

Your drive will wear more from single spin up/spin down than from several hours of constant access. Spin up/spin down is a very weary operation, thats why its even a counter in the SMART for it.

Actually for more people it goes otherwise - they will want to disable automatic spindown (or parking) to prevent the major cause of HDD wear and problems.

BTW in the power saver profile HDD activity in Vista should automatically be drastically reduced. At least it does for me. I have a Turbo Memory though, though I dont know, maybe ReadyDrive+ReadyBoost have such an impact.

 

Perhaps you're right about this point.

Having spent enough time tweaking my system, I'm prepared to give it a rest and just live with the system performance. Maybe SP1 will indeed come with more power saving goodies.

Thanks for your input everyone!

 

Has anyone found the definitive answer to what that pair of lastalive files actually are and do?

 

Well I couldn't read the files (due to them being in use) but the resource monitor's disk usage section says it's being used by svchost.exe (services), and gives a process ID (PID), so I checked the Services tab of Task Manager to see what services are running with that PID. They are: Windows Audio, DHCP Client, Windows Event Log, TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper, and Security Center. Just looking at those... my initial hunch is that it's Windows Event Log. Although, with a filename like lastalive[01].dat, and the file size never seems to change... it could be one of the network services I mentioned. Windows Audio and Security Center just don't seem like they'd be likely candidates... but what do I know. I'm sure I could find the culprit by stopping these services one by one... but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

 

It looks a little like a brute force method of keeping the disk "awake" to keep hibernation from causing the PC to go into a coma.

 

this whole hd thrashing thing used to bother me..but it doesnt...why? because the computer saves certain tasks for when I am off the computer and I appreciate that...who cares what is going on in ure computer when you're not using it?

 

The HDD trashing is caused by ReadyBoost and mostly by SuperFetch. It is highly improved in SP1. If anyone wants to install it there is a hack in my signature (for the RTM).
Windows Server 2008 doesn't suffer from this issue (as it's 6001 and SuperFetch is disabled by default). Microsoft even acknowledged that the HDDs don't spin down when they should with Vista (without patch/SP1), so this is a bug.

 

Actually, my HDD does not thrash; I was just curious about those two lastalive files and whether anyone really knew what they were. I don't, other than conjecture.

 

I was replying to the thread's title.

 

LOL, all this is making solid state drives look good, no?

 

No, it has nothing to do with SSDs.

 

Here's what I did to stop the constant hard drive activity:

http://ultramobilepc-tips.blogspot.com/2007/05/make-your-vista-to-run-faster-in-your.html

After applying the hack, I have zero hard drive activity.

 

Of course!
bad joke..

After recent updates and two minutes during a restart, drive activity is low.