Disk activity in VISTA 64

[BonzaiDuck]

As much as I'd like to stay on the bleeding edge, I'm lagging behind those who've already jumped on the Windows 7 beta bandwagon.

I built this system last summer as an "experimental" VISTA 64 implementation -- intending to use it mostly for games and to assess whether to move my business software and files to it from an XP system.

I've configured a RAID0 array under the nForce onboard controllers of a 780i chipset.

What is VISTA doing to cause my hard-drive LED to flash each and every second -- even as the system sits idle? Does this have to do with the "indexing" feature? Do I need whatever VISTA is doing? If not, can I put a stop to it?

 

[SunnyD]

Sometimes indexing, sometimes Defender, might be your antivirus... orrrr...

Some optical drives ironically tie their access light into the IDE drive access channel line. I had one or two that did this, it was annoying. And since by default autoplay is turned on in XP and Vista, the optical drive attempts to access every second to see if there's a new disc in the drive (assuming it was empty to begin with), and on these particular drives not only will the access light on the drive flash, but the HDD access light connected to the motherboard will flash just about at the same time. To verify this is the issue, put a disc in the drive at boot up, start Vista, and let it sit and see if it still happens.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Thanks, SunnyD.

I'll keep checking back here for more insights from others.

In meantime, I'll see if there are any Kaspersky AV features I can harmlessly disable, or examine the possibility of disabling or turning off the "Defender" feature that is part of VISTA.

 

[Mem]

What is VISTA doing to cause my hard-drive LED to flash each and every second -- even as the system sits idle? Does this have to do with the "indexing" feature? Do I need whatever VISTA is doing? If not, can I put a stop to it?

I disabled real time scan on defender(I just set it to scan once a week),disabled search indexing(dont use it) and auto defrag( I use a third party defrag software).

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: BonzaiDuck
Thanks, SunnyD.

I'll keep checking back here for more insights from others.

In meantime, I'll see if there are any Kaspersky AV features I can harmlessly disable, or examine the possibility of disabling or turning off the "Defender" feature that is part of VISTA.

Disable the real time scanning on Defender and if you actually use the search function, upgrade to Windows Search 4.0 (Should be available through Windows Update) and go into the options and trim indexing down to only the files and folder you actually will search. You can also trim down the types of files to only those that you will search.

I leave indexing enabled because I use a combination of the winkey and then type a few letters in the search bar to launch all my programs. There is no faster or more efficient way to launch your programs or access your commonly used files.

Edit: Trimming down indexing will make it very efficient and you will rarely ever have it get in your way afterwards. Vista doesn't index while gaming, so that is not an issue.

 

[TheKub]

Unless if you feel that it is having some negative impact on your performance just put a piece of electrical tape over the light.

 

[Jeff7181]

PC manufacturers need to remove the hard drive access light. I can't believe the number of people who freak out because something their hard drive is being accessed.

 

[Blayze]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
PC manufacturers need to remove the hard drive access light. I can't believe the number of people who freak out because something their hard drive is being accessed.

Gateway has on some of their recent desktops.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Thanks for your input on all this, folks. I can actually see how this thread might continue with further insight from others -- given the links I've found since my last post.

For instance, there is a component of VISTA called "Super-Fetch," which apparently causes this sort of regular disk activity when the system is at idle -- not to exclude other things, like Defender:

How To Disable SuperFetch

Here's another link featuring a lively discussion of the matter:

Excessive Hard Disk Activity in VISTA

One poster notes, item-by-item, how the various features which cause the perpetual disk activity are each "a GOOD THING."

Other wisdom on the matter suggests that SuperFetch is a useless component of an otherwise good and under-rated OS, and that Windows 7 eliminates it. Whether that last statement is true or not has about the same uncertainty as the reliability of Wikipedia posts, but the poster seems to be authoritative.

More on this from others might be helpful to me, and others as well.

As I mentioned elsewhere, my "test" VISTA 64 system deployed a RAID0 array of two disks, and one of them "went south" a few days before Christmas. The disks were less than six months old. They were Seagate 7200.10's, which had some good reviews when I bought them, but customer reviews have since been salted with remarks of "DOA" drives and short longevity under the 5-year warranty. And, of course, I know about RAID0 -- you do it at your own risk.

Even so, I decided to look into this phenomenon of perpetual disk activity, so . . . . here I am . . . . and . . . . there you are . . . .

BonzaiDuck

 

[Jeff7181]

The reason you're going to get reponses like mine above is because this question has been asked time and time again on many different forums for a couple years now. The fact that misinformed people still advodate disabling a bunch of services and features in Vista is more ridiculous now than it was then.

Nothing needs to be disabled. If your hard drive died, it was defective... Vista didn't kill it.

 

[postmortemIA]

superfetch will read only about first few minutes after you boot up..

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
superfetch will read only about first few minutes after you boot up..

Depends on how much RAM you have. A system with 8 or 12 GB of memory will be reading from the disk longer to fill the cache than one with 2 or 3 GB. Then throughout the day it will move things in and out of the cache based on what it's determined your usage patterns are.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
The reason you're going to get reponses like mine above is because this question has been asked time and time again on many different forums for a couple years now. The fact that misinformed people still advodate disabling a bunch of services and features in Vista is more ridiculous now than it was then.

Nothing needs to be disabled. If your hard drive died, it was defective... Vista didn't kill it.

Yes -- I might have entertained such thoughts briefly, but it was pretty apparent from the symptoms just before the drive died. For the trouble, I'm not even sure I want to take the time, trouble and postage to go through an RMA cycle with Seagate.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
PC manufacturers need to remove the hard drive access light. I can't believe the number of people who freak out because something their hard drive is being accessed.

Well, in the bad old days, before the days of Vista accessing your HD every second just because - you could tell if you had some kind of background malware on your system, if the HD accessess didn't match what you are doing.

Personally, I LIKE the HD access light, it gives me insight into what the machine is doing. If my system stops responding, I can look and see if the HD light is on solid, then I know the machine is paging/thrashing.