High disk writes

How, what, where and why - when using the software.
m_b
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Joined: 2024.07.24. 07:51

High disk writes

Post by m_b »

Hi, I am concerned about the I/O Write bytes I can see in my task scheduler.
Trying to save the writes to SSD to make them reasonable.
For example, today HDSentinel have written 12GB to some disk. I have it running in the tray to monitor temperatures but have not done any tests or anything.

What is hdsentinel writing all the time??
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hdsentinel
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Re: High disk writes

Post by hdsentinel »

I can confirm that Hard Disk Sentinel designed exactly to minimise writes. It does not write such high amount of course: the real time disk monitoring function (which monitors the writes performed by other apps and Windows) may affect the value you see in Windows Task Manager.

Exactly to keep writes at lowest level, Hard Disk Sentinel performs as few writes as possible, it updates its data files rarely.
You can easily verify how often the files in its folder (C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel) updated.
m_b
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Re: High disk writes

Post by m_b »

thank you! can this "real time monitoring" function be turned off?
m_b
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Re: High disk writes

Post by m_b »

please see the attached image.
scenario.
hd sentinel runs in a tray app
the computer is on and off and usually put to sleep in the night. last reboot was on monday ish, total uptime 1day 22 hrs.
I have an amd array raid 0 of 2 2tb SSD so it makes one 4TB together. using built in motherboard raid.
I also have an external usb hard drive plus an internal 6tb hard drive.

Total writes on the physical ssd disk 75BG. which is fine as i been running a VM a few times.

I am not sure which disk the hd sentinel writes to tbh.

The edge high writes is probably teams client that is essentially a web app inside edge. but that is on the teams not on you guys.
However, why are you writing 21GB of data and where to??
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hdsentinel
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Re: High disk writes

Post by hdsentinel »

m_b wrote: 2024.07.25. 10:50 thank you! can this "real time monitoring" function be turned off?
(sorry, somehow I missed this answer)

Yes, you can disable by the following registry trick:

1) completely close Hard Disk Sentinel by File -> Exit

2) open REGEDIT and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\HD Sentinel
(or if you use 64 bit Windows, then HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\HD Sentinel ) where you see lots of entries

3) Please create a new string value (REG_SZ) under this key, called
DetectPerf
and please specify its value to 0

After restart of the software, it should not access the performance counters, so the "Performance" tab should show no performance information at all.

Let's see if there is any difference.
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hdsentinel
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Re: High disk writes

Post by hdsentinel »

m_b wrote: 2024.11.28. 03:09 However, why are you writing 21GB of data and where to??
Probably nowhere.
As I wrote, Hard Disk Sentinel normally writes only minimal amount of data: updates its statistics, logs periodically - but generally this is only few KBytes after the periodic detections (eg. 5-10 minutes by default).
Of course if you have many drives and/or bigger statistics files (eg. running for long time), the amount of data can be more.


In addition, there can be some settings, functions (of course) which can cause additional written data, for example
- if you may configure to monitor NAS drives, then Hard Disk Sentinel reads and records the reports from NAS drives (and updates a log)
- if you may configure to automatically create/update XML reports (Configuration -> Advanced options page)
and so - then these may cause more writes.
Also if you may configure to perform detections frequently - then (as expected) the writes are more frequent.

But generally the previously mentioned performance monitoring can cause higher numbers (but it does not mean that the software writes that amount). You may try to disable (please see previous post).

If you still see higher values, I'd recommend to

- use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option, may give some ideas/thoughts

- try a clean (re)install by uninstall, delete the original folder and re-install the software, to ensure that all previous status, statistics, settings, etc.. should be reset and check how things work this way

and/or

- (as suggested) check the folder of Hard Disk Sentinel ( C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel by default) for the most recent files and watch how/when they updated (when their date/time changes), so you can check/confirm which file(s) may have bigger size and/or updated too frequently or so - and we can investigate that specifically.
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