Kernel_task scans my external 14TB drive once per day - Using maximum disk read speeds during several hours

[Phat^Trance]

Does anyone know what i can do about this? each day the kernel_task scans my external WD USB 14tb drive (which i also have as plex server storage), and during this time (takes several hours) it reads around 200 mb/s, which is the maximum read capacity on the drive. So during this scan when watching a movie, it will lag for me.

Does anyone know how i can stop this the kernel_trask to stop scanning my external drive? Ive checked with plex media server and there isnt any process running when kernel_task is running, and i have no extra antivirus apps installed.

Spotlight search on the drive have been disabled, so it must be something else causing the scan

I have a Mac Mini (m1)

Screenshot:

https://imgur.com/3AO69GE

 

[saudor]

sounds like it's photo library related (the next entry down shows 22gb)
Tim Crook wants to see your pics!

On a more serious notes, photos is such a resource hog so i keep it on external drive that's disconnected 99% of the time. No issues since.

 

[gilby101]

Spotlight search on the drive have been disabled, so it must be something else causing the scan

I don't think you have established what is reading the drive or even which drive is being read. iStatMenus would help you to discover which disk is being read.

Do check on Spotlight. Run this command (without the ") in Terminal "mdutil -sa" to see the status of each disk.

200 MByte/s (I assume you do mean bytes not bits) is pretty high for reads on a HDD.

So what have you got on the external drive (apart from your Plex library) and how much space for each type of content?

ps. I hope you have an even bigger drive for backup.