Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (1532 mails)
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Re: [opensuse] openSUSE 10.2, desktop PC, disk being constantly written to. Any way to reduce it?
- From: Randall R Schulz <rschulz@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 18:45:33 -0700
- Message-id: <200706301845.33846.rschulz@xxxxxxxxx>
On Saturday 30 June 2007 15:16, Tero Pesonen wrote:
> Hi all!
>
> ...
>
> I've noticed that at least on my upgraded installation the system
> seems to be almost constantly accessing through file I/O's the "/"
> mounted disk and also the "/home" partition. I realised this as I
> studied the output given by "iostat." If I leave it to monitor the
> system while running X and KDE, it shows constant "blocks written"
> action on hda, which contains both the root partition "/" and home
> partitions.
It may just be the updatedb process, which indexes all known files so
you can find them by name (or name fragment or pattern).
> ...
>
> How does it show? Well, first of all, there's constantly (every few
> seconds) from some 8 to few dozens blocks being written, according to
> iostat. ...
You do realize, don't you, that this is really just a trickle of data.
If your system were busy doing things you thought were important
(perhaps a complex query or update on a large database), the presence
or absence of this additional I/O volume would go entirely unnoticed
and be unmeasurable against such an application load.
> This constant writing (constant writing plus regular bursts) is done
> irrespective to the activity of the desktop. Whether I do something
> or not, this happens. Even when back on pure console on run level 3.
>
> ...
>
> So I tried to find via kfind which files have most recently been
> written to (access date changed to current.) There were tons of
> those, but at least it seems that in /sys and especially in /proc
> huge amount of files are updated so that they're always marked as
> having been updated at the same time as the current time shown by
> system clock. Not even a minute behind, never.
Try to think of it as really fresh data. Like really fresh food. ... Or
whatever it takes to change your worry into calmness...
> Might this folder be the subject to this constant disk output? It
> seems it could be, or at least could be one of the culprits.
>
> All my hda partitoons were formatted for SuSE 9.3 when it was
> installed, and are ReiserFS. According to Yast partitioner, they seem
> to have been set to "ordered data mode" from the three possible
> (journal, ordered, writeback.) This is what was then set by default,
> as I don't remember to having changed those.
>
> Why is this constant I/O a problem?
Only because you've become aware of it, I'd say.
> Well, I have a feeling my old
> SuSE 9.3 did not do this. What is more, I'm worried if my poor IDE
> hard drive can take all this strain the system is putting on it.
Strain? Hardly! Try not to think of it as someone barking orders at you,
wearing you down and exhausting your. Computer hardware really isn't
like a biological organism.
> If
> my hard disk is writing 24h/day, how long will it last before it dies
> under such server-level use?
Evidently you don't know what constitutes "server-level" use! Servers
will sustain _continuous_ loads near their rated maximum for hours and
hours on end! What you've described is nothing like that level of load.
> The heads need to constantly move and
> write... and these standard IDE HDD's are definitely no server level
> units that are designed to perform under constant stress.
The best thing to do is to refrain from anthropomorphizing computer
hardware!
> ...
>
> And above all, do others' systems show similar disk I/O behaviour?
Yes. All Linux systems are logging all the time. They do daily
bookkeeping, which for systems that are not kept on 24 hours per day,
will happen as soon as they're started up each day. Computers are
rarely quiescent in any literal sense. They're always doing things.
That's why we have them!
> ...
>
> Thank you,
> Tero Pesonen
Randall Schulz
--
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Hi all!
>
> ...
>
> I've noticed that at least on my upgraded installation the system
> seems to be almost constantly accessing through file I/O's the "/"
> mounted disk and also the "/home" partition. I realised this as I
> studied the output given by "iostat." If I leave it to monitor the
> system while running X and KDE, it shows constant "blocks written"
> action on hda, which contains both the root partition "/" and home
> partitions.
It may just be the updatedb process, which indexes all known files so
you can find them by name (or name fragment or pattern).
> ...
>
> How does it show? Well, first of all, there's constantly (every few
> seconds) from some 8 to few dozens blocks being written, according to
> iostat. ...
You do realize, don't you, that this is really just a trickle of data.
If your system were busy doing things you thought were important
(perhaps a complex query or update on a large database), the presence
or absence of this additional I/O volume would go entirely unnoticed
and be unmeasurable against such an application load.
> This constant writing (constant writing plus regular bursts) is done
> irrespective to the activity of the desktop. Whether I do something
> or not, this happens. Even when back on pure console on run level 3.
>
> ...
>
> So I tried to find via kfind which files have most recently been
> written to (access date changed to current.) There were tons of
> those, but at least it seems that in /sys and especially in /proc
> huge amount of files are updated so that they're always marked as
> having been updated at the same time as the current time shown by
> system clock. Not even a minute behind, never.
Try to think of it as really fresh data. Like really fresh food. ... Or
whatever it takes to change your worry into calmness...
> Might this folder be the subject to this constant disk output? It
> seems it could be, or at least could be one of the culprits.
>
> All my hda partitoons were formatted for SuSE 9.3 when it was
> installed, and are ReiserFS. According to Yast partitioner, they seem
> to have been set to "ordered data mode" from the three possible
> (journal, ordered, writeback.) This is what was then set by default,
> as I don't remember to having changed those.
>
> Why is this constant I/O a problem?
Only because you've become aware of it, I'd say.
> Well, I have a feeling my old
> SuSE 9.3 did not do this. What is more, I'm worried if my poor IDE
> hard drive can take all this strain the system is putting on it.
Strain? Hardly! Try not to think of it as someone barking orders at you,
wearing you down and exhausting your. Computer hardware really isn't
like a biological organism.
> If
> my hard disk is writing 24h/day, how long will it last before it dies
> under such server-level use?
Evidently you don't know what constitutes "server-level" use! Servers
will sustain _continuous_ loads near their rated maximum for hours and
hours on end! What you've described is nothing like that level of load.
> The heads need to constantly move and
> write... and these standard IDE HDD's are definitely no server level
> units that are designed to perform under constant stress.
The best thing to do is to refrain from anthropomorphizing computer
hardware!
> ...
>
> And above all, do others' systems show similar disk I/O behaviour?
Yes. All Linux systems are logging all the time. They do daily
bookkeeping, which for systems that are not kept on 24 hours per day,
will happen as soon as they're started up each day. Computers are
rarely quiescent in any literal sense. They're always doing things.
That's why we have them!
> ...
>
> Thank you,
> Tero Pesonen
Randall Schulz
--
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@xxxxxxxxxxxx
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