Why is my media hard drive so active?

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Tue Dec 06, 2016 12:37 am

Over the past couple of weeks, the hard drive where I keep photos/videos/music has been much more active than usual. I use an SSD for the OS and all programs, so the media hard drive is typically silent. But now I frequently hear it, and during games it causes noticeable slowdown. A game of Battlefield 1 earlier tonight was practically unable because of this.

None of this was an issue just a few weeks ago. Any ideas on how I could diagnose the issue? I'm on WIndows 10, FWIW.

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Tue Dec 06, 2016 12:40 am

Indexing?

Anonymous Bosch · Post by **Anonymous Bosch** » Tue Dec 06, 2016 1:03 am

There's a nifty little freeware utility you can use, called 'What’s My Computer Doing?' that makes it simple and easy to figure out exactly what program(s) are accessing your HD.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Tue Dec 06, 2016 2:54 am

I like that. Sometimes my hard drive works overtime when I'm not doing much of anything. I figure it's defragging or something. Will be nice to figure out what.

MonkeyFinger · Post by **MonkeyFinger** » Tue Dec 06, 2016 10:32 am

Thanks, AB. Just sent the link to my little brother who has been known to get all paranoid when his hard-drive is accessing away when "nothing should be going on". Think I finally have him convinced there's no such time but maybe this might help the next time he's convinced someone is on him machine stealing all his crap.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Tue Dec 06, 2016 11:24 am

Thanks, AB. I'll give that a try tonight.

Cylus Maxii · Post by **Cylus Maxii** » Tue Dec 06, 2016 12:42 pm

Do you have a pagefile setup on the HDD for some reason? Windows 8/10 would disable one on an SSD (like your OS drive) by default. If you have upgraded the OS (e.g. from Win7 to WIN10), maybe you have an old one on there that is getting used under certain conditions?

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Wed Dec 07, 2016 8:22 am

Cylus Maxii wrote:Do you have a pagefile setup on the HDD for some reason? Windows 8/10 would disable one on an SSD (like your OS drive) by default. If you have upgraded the OS (e.g. from Win7 to WIN10), maybe you have an old one on there that is getting used under certain conditions?

The pagefile was disabled on my OS drive, but enabled on my HDD. I turned it off on the HDD, and enabled a modest-sized pagefile on the SSD. Will see if that makes a difference.

Cylus Maxii · Post by **Cylus Maxii** » Wed Dec 07, 2016 2:06 pm

Or just disable it entirely.. Windows 10 does very well without one most of the time.

Punisher · Post by **Punisher** » Fri Dec 09, 2016 3:57 am

Just an FYI, but it could also be a sign of upcoming drive failure. Make sure you have a backup of everything that is important.

MonkeyFinger · Post by **MonkeyFinger** » Fri Dec 09, 2016 10:04 am

On that note, if it is a SMART drive you could check the statistics on it and see if there was anything to worry about.

Punisher · Post by **Punisher** » Sat Dec 10, 2016 10:12 am

MonkeyFinger wrote:On that note, if it is a SMART drive you could check the statistics on it and see if there was anything to worry about.

you can search for Seagate Seatools. It does a good job of testing the harddrive.

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Why is my media hard drive so active?

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