Finding source of disk activity?

[haravikk]

Hi there!

Okay, simple summary; I've got an external drive that I use for downloading large files, and for music (to reduce activity on my main drives), and this is exclusively used by Transmission (bittorrent), and iTunes as a result. However, very rarely I can hear the disk thrashing away, and this will continue even after I quit both programs, the only way I can seem to make it stop is by unmounting the drive and remounting it again.

I'm wondering if there is an easy way to see a list of running programs and the amount of disk activity that they are generating? Per-volume would be nice but even a simple readout of processes should allow me to zero in on the culprit. The only other way I can think of would be to quit processes one at a time until I find the perpetrator, but I really don't want to do that if I can avoid it!

 

[mstrze]

Are you accessing Finder at any time when you hear this disk access? Finder needs to know that all of the drives that are connected to your system are INDEED connected and ready to use, should you wish to save or load something from them. This should only happen when you are physically browsing or saving or loading I think...if the drive goes to sleep. i.e., finder will spin it up to assure it's still on the network and available.

If it's just random disc access, then I'm not sure about that.

 

[haravikk]

I know what you mean about the Finder I think, annoys me when my other external drives spin up all the time when I don't need them every time I load/save

But in this case it's proper disk activity of some kind, a lot of thrashing but no obvious cause as nothing is being written, and nothing should be getting read.