Increased Disk Activity in Snow Leopard?

[lamadude]

Hi, I have SL installed since the release day and I've noticed that for some reason my hard drive is a lot more active than it was before. At first I thought it was indexing something (such as the spotlight index that needs to be built) but this has been going on for days now. Even during very light computer work (just one firefox window with macrumors) de disk still keeps going like crazy. It's not constantly, but definitely way more frequent than on leopard.
Has anyone noticed something similar after their mac? thx

My mac is an ealry 08 mbp, and I did a fresh install, no upgrade.

 

[Aaron H.]

I have an early 08 MBP with the exact same problem. In fact, I found this message while searching for answers to the problem. Since this is the first place I've visited, I unfortunately have no answers. Kind of glad I'm not alone, though.

 

[pmartora]

Same problem. Same mac , early MBPRO.

Snow leopard seems to be slower than Leopard on my side..

 

[Amarq09]

Same problems guys. I have a late 2008 macbook 2.4 ghz with 2 gb memory. There's no way I should be having these constant hang ups with so few applications running.

 

[mattgallop]

Same problem for me too!

I have the same problem too - I thought it was indexing also.
It deffo started after I installed Snow Leopard.
I have a similar age MBP - Last model before the Unibody.

The only time it seems to stop is when:

a) I log out and sit at the login screen
b) i type a search into spotlight (but only pauses for a second)

I did think I'd fixed it after I installed rosetta from the Snow Leopard disc to fix another problem - but it started again the next day.

I am getting a bit worried it is a failing hard drive -

Please post here if you have any ideas!

Thanks

 

[iLog.Genius]

I don't know about HDD as mine has been acting the same but there seems to be more CPU usage.

 

[mattgallop]

Seem to have fixed the problem...

Hi

I seem to have fixed the problem of constant Hard Disc writing and extreme memory usage.

None of the suggested fixes related to spotlight seemed to work for me.

I have re-installed from the snowleopard upgrade disc, which has put me back to 10.6 (took about 40mins and did not delete any data or apps)

After the initial re-indexing of Spotlight which made the disc churn and memory used up - the problem has gone!

Memory usage normal!
Disc activity normal!

I will at some point install the 10.6.1 update, although I am a little scared to do this as I think it might be after this that my problems began..

Will report back when I have done this.

 

[VirginMac]

Same problem here and the harddisk has already been replaced. Looking in the process list /System/Library/Filesystems/AppleShare/check_afp.app/Contents/MacOS/check_afp started at the same time as the disk activity. so whats going on ??
Keeps the local AFP client in sync with the AFP Server when another client updates items on that same server, refreshes the reconnect authentication credential on a periodic basis and handles displaying AFP server messages.

I'm using an AFP server don't know what an AFP server is (Yet ! google here I come) I am connected to a share on a mini under the Telly ?

 

[Cloudane]

To be honest I've taken to calling it Slow Leopard (so much for it being a refined, faster version!). I've noticed this on all 3 of my different Macs, even after clean installs. It thrashes a LOT, and I've seen the beachball more often in the past 6 months of using SL than the rest of the 5 years I've been using OS X. Apps will frequently freeze while it just "sits and chugs" and it's very frustrating. (And doesn't appear to be spotlight or time machine).

I've "solved" the problem by switching to SSD (maybe Apple have some sort of interest in pushing this technology!) but I must admit if it wasn't for the speed benefits in general it'd be a bit of a "sledgehammer to fix a protruding nail" kind of solution. I'd be curious to know if anyone's traced the source of the changes, if only to spare the SSD's life expectancy.

 

[chrisle]

Run the following in Terminal:

sudo fs_usage

By doing this I could tell that Adobe processes were taxing my HD. I took the sledgehammer approach and uninstalled CS4. Problem solved. HD activity is now basically flatlined. Safari, Mail and iTunes are running. Now to reinstall CS4 and dink with Version Cue 4.

Just reinstalled CS4, sans Version Cue and all is well.

 

[odizzy]

Increased Disk Activity in Snow Leopard?

The chrisle post solved my problem- thank you for sharing!

Running sudo fs_usage in terminal clearly shows the crazy Adobe version cue problem...

As far as doing the uninstall, go to Applications>Utilities>Adobe Installers (which are actually Uninstallers...) and there you can uninstall properly through the app...

 

[TechnoBob]

The chrisle post led to a solution for me as well. Turned out that the huge not-visible-in-Activity-Manager user was netsession, which apparently is part of the Akamai peer-to-peer distribution system.

Solution was to uninstall Akamai. Instructions were here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/914340/

Thanks!

 

[rifflesby]

Sorry to necro an ancient thread, but I've been having constant disk activity problems for ages, and in my latest round of trying to stop it I pulled this thread out of Google.

Chrisle, if you're still reading this forum, thank you so much for that sudo fs_usage tip. It was the key to finally discovering what's been going on, and it was so dumb I could smack myself.

The problem was, in my occasional quests to free up disk space, I was setting various directories to "Calculate all sizes" in View Options, so I could see which folders were getting bloated, and then, crucially, not turning it off afterwards. This is particularly bad when it's, say, your root directory. The simple act of having a Finder window open meant it was scanning every file on the hard drive just so it could give me numbers for the 'Size' column.

So, anyone else that arrives here from a Google search for "constant disk activity OSX"... maybe check that out first.