[Feature Request] Find out who write disk most

Suggestions around PrimoCache
Post Reply
yxtiger1
Level 1
Level 1
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2016 7:55 am

[Feature Request] Find out who write disk most

Post by yxtiger1 »

I'd like to kwon, who write my disk so heavy and so often.

I've found in my PC, many logs(such as Anti-virus, system, browser...), user-database (browser history, stocks, QQ, Chinese input dictionary...) will take the major role.

For these programs, I'd like to design a special rule ---- a very long time write-delay(3 hour maybe), to reduce most of redundant write,

PS: Now I'm using a simple tool to watch file's write: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/folder_changes_view.html . The shortage of this is lack of total write size's accumulate.
InquiringMind
Level SS
Level SS
Posts: 477
Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2010 11:10 pm

Re: [Feature Request] Find out who write disk most

Post by InquiringMind »

Check out Process Monitor - this allows you to monitor file access on a per-process basis. You shouldn't have this running all the time since it can massively increase memory usage but it is an excellent tool for checking what individual processes are up to.

PrimoCache however works at block-level - it has no idea what file is being accessed or which process is responsible so there is no realistic chance of being able to have "defer-writes" vary by process. If you have a program responsible for large amounts of disk activity (note: anti-virus software by its nature *has* to read your disk frequently) then try experimenting with its configuration to reduce that (e.g. lower frequency of scans and/or updates) but don't overdo this with A/V software - without at least daily updates it is far less likely to detect new malware when/if you encounter it.
HMarx
Level 1
Level 1
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2016 11:22 pm

Re: [Feature Request] Find out who write disk most

Post by HMarx »

I also use the individual specialized SysInternals tools (by Microsoft) from time-to-time (as well as AnVir Utilities -- a great package which includes controlling startups, jv16 PowerTools by Macecraft, WinUtilities by YL Computing, and Glary Utilities among others).

However, my long-time day-to-day low-impact favorite "Task Manager" type utility has been the now-free ("for personal use only") TaskInfo available at iarsn. com/taskinfo.html (remove the space character in the address, of course). It's getting a bit dated as the author hasn't updated it since 2012, but it is still very functional and handy.

I've used it for many years as a registered user from long ago when it was the best thing available (IMO). It can show many very useful system activities and info about processes including the feature you are looking for: real-time and cumulative bytes read/written and number of reads/writes, by process. It also shows the individual files in use as well as each file's access index position (interesting for tracking database file accesses).

It can also be used to set/change process priorities either temporarily or "persistently" when they appear (before I discovered Process Lasso by Bitsum which can dynamically tame the processor cycles dominated by "CPU hogs"); show and sort by process start time (a favorite feature of mine, to put most-recently launched tasks at the top of the list); highlight in colors any newly-appearing or recently-gone processes and briefly-accessed files; show IP and name of any remote communication connections in use by task; extensive services info including dependencies and associated PID; moving-history charts for individual process CPU use, long-term average CPU %; and overall system moving-history charts for file I/O, RAM in use, swap/pagefile usage, virtual memory, USER & GDI objects (for older systems), handles, CPU by core, etc.

Memory can be "slow" or "fast" flushed to free up RAM for older software that needs it available, as can the file cache. You can create process dumps and search for text strings in names or descriptions, etc. (useful when possible malware "mystery" dialogs appear on screen and you wonder what they belong to).

Columns can be added/removed, sorted and rearranged for most any process attribute to achieve the view you prefer. Pop-up alerts can be set by threshold level for many parameters. There are tabs for image info, threads, modules in use, environment variables, "started by" launching info, etc. Oh, and there are many right-click context-sensitive menus with lots of extra features available for most items -- it's quite extensive!

I seem to recall that the application file folder (of just a few files) for TaskInfo can be easily copied to and run "portable" from a USB Flash memory stick, but it's been a while since I've used it that way.

Over the years I've been surprised that TaskInfo has not received more attention. And all displayed on one useful page -- a very nice bit of programming -- try it out!
HMarx
Level 1
Level 1
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2016 11:22 pm

Re: [Feature Request] Find out who write disk most

Post by HMarx »

Forgot to mention the following:

Some time ago someone made the suggestion (which Support acknowledged and took under advisement) to provide a means for PrimoCache to pause operation when certain chosen process tasks were recognized as running, such as, for example, Task Scheduler launching MyDefrag or other drive defragmentation software; then resuming disk caching when that task finished/exited (or at least idled with no further disk I/O after a period of time).

Since TaskInfo does have this ability as part of its task priority-setting feature, perhaps the Romex Software folks could contact Mr. Igor Arsenin to see how he implemented it so reliably: http://iarsn. com/aboutme.html (again, remove the extra space). When I had previously had an ongoing dialog with him regarding TaskInfo issues, he was very responsive and polite.
InquiringMind
Level SS
Level SS
Posts: 477
Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2010 11:10 pm

Re: [Feature Request] Find out who write disk most

Post by InquiringMind »

I do remember TaskInfo from the Win95 days when the only alternative was Microsoft's own KernelToys utility WinTop. Have had another look at it and one downside (compared to the likes of Process Hacker or Process Explorer) is the display looks quite disorganised by default, though there are plenty of configuration options to improve things. Would look nicer if its display used ClearType on the text though. :(

However some of the utilities it has may come in useful - in particular I've found the Free RAM (Fast and Slow) options the only thing that seems able to reduce Paged Pool (both Virtual Size and Working Set) usage. That is significant for me since if this gets near the maximum (150MB in my case due to having the /3GB switch enabled in boot.ini) then programs using graphics are liable to crash or display corrupted textures (most likely due to the graphics driver requesting more paged pool than available). The only other utility that came close was CleanMem and that lowered Working Set but not Virtual Size.

As for pausing PrimoCache while other programs are running, I'm pretty confident that could be done via an AutoHotKey macro checking for specific window titlebars and using the PrimoCache CLI to pause the cache if one is detected.
Post Reply