Strange Hard Drive Activity

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Fanra, Jan 10, 2020.

  1. Fanra https://everquest.fanra.info

    I have EverQuest installed on my C: drive. That drive is an SSD.

    I also have two other drives, which are HDD (spinning disk) drives. Those drives are set to power down if not used after about 20 minutes.

    Here's what is strange. Often when I zone in EQ, the HDD drive(s) suddenly spin up. This slows down my zoning until after they finish powering up. Does anyone know why, since EQ is installed on drive C:, why E: and/or F: power up when I zone?
  2. Hellowhatsyourname Augur


    Gotta scan you for VMs or something? hah
  3. xxGriff Augur

    I will assume you are using Windows of some variant. Open Task manager and simply look/monitor what apps are accessing your HDD's. do not assume it is EQ, the Processes tab can be set to show disk access by thru put and, there are other means to monitor your disks as well. more than likely it is something else running in the background and those can and often do include OS processes but looking on task manager is a good place to start looking. (this is just an example of what it will look like) Windows Resource Monitor is another helpful utility built in to Windows which will give detailed info on thru put/access
    [IMG]
    Fanra likes this.
  4. svann Augur

    Id guess its windows itself thinking if you are using any hard drive then all hard drives should be awakened. But afaik there is no way in task manager to monitor what process is using a particular drive, only which process is using any disk. Might find a utility somewhere that can do it idk.
  5. Hitty Augur

    Win 10 has a nasty way of annoying somebody with "perfect" multitasking if things are in standby. The whole system will stand still until everything spins up while Win10 needs something which is normally not of their concern (or the NSA). Best solution for me: Install HotSwap! and remove all spinning discs from the system temporarily until next boot or crypt everything with Veracrypt/Truecrypt and dismount them - so that Windows cannot put his nose in things which are not their concern. My System has M2 and SSDs, the HDs are the big storage blocks and are not needed while playing EQ.

    I tried every other option (like Energy Management, Tools to avoid standby etc), nothing worked - at least under Win 10. Since HotSwap and removal of every stupid hardware all work like intended.

    And if the index is built on the SSD then this can disabled for good - it only wears down the SSD.
    Fanra likes this.
  6. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    In all likelihood, I would bet that Windows is using your HDDs to host some of the virtual memory it is using. How much actual RAM does your system have? If you have a relatively low amount of RAM, then it is entirely possible that Windows is having to use a lot of Virtual memory, and I would bet that your SSD is rather full while the HDDs which you only use for storage are fairly empty, so they get chosen for the VM instead of the SSD.
  7. Hitty Augur

    That does not change it. Even if the SSD is nearly empty and the memory is set to C: then Win10 tends to access the drives out of any stupid reason. Even set the drives into non-standby-mode does not help on todays most drives because they have an internal standby independent from Windows. Using secondary tools to disable it does not work properly either. If the Windows version is older, then this idea would perhaps have a chance.
  8. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    It's not a stupid reason. It's a feature called Virtual Memory and you should be thankful it's there. It increases the lifespan of your drives by keeping files as local as possible and increases performance on systems with low-performing I/O data rates.

    To disable page file on storage drives:

    1. Press Win+ Pause|Break
    2. Click Advanced system settings
    3. Click Advanced tab
    4. Find Performance box
    5. Press Settings inside this box
    6. Click Advanced tab
    7. Click Change
    8. Uncheck the Automatically manage box
    9. Manage your drives the way you see fit
    Remember, this may speed up EQ, but it may impact performance of other applications if you store large apps or files on those drives. When you have multiple drives but set Virtual Memory focused on one drive, in increases data swapping between the OS, Virtual Memory, and Physical Memory.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  9. Hitty Augur

    I said, Win10 is doing stupid things besides the virtual memory. It access drives without any good reason even if you completely disable this feature. And it refers to the post above which addresses not the C: but the other drives.

    ... forget the last part.. had a long day....:(
  10. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    Then I don't think that your is related to Windows 10. I have multiple drives and windows 10, and they never spin up unless I am actually using them. To me, it sounds like there is some other program which is accessing your drives at certain points in time. No idea what it would be.
  11. Hitty Augur

    Thank you, but nope - I would be happy if you are right. I have it on every system and here is a network of PC, some running 24/7. It seems it is an issue with the LAN and with Win10 always has somehow the need to check availability of the network drivers and in that manner it somehow wants to access all the drives too. And I have that also on customers PCs. We meanwhile joked around that the NSA has nothing better to do than run their stuff on our system... lol... who knows...perhaps climate change is the reason - nowadays people say that it made the dinosaurs die out... :p (sarcasm is sometimes the only savior).

    If I remove completely the HDs then I have no issue anymore.

    - energy management disabled via Win10
    - changed VM to M2 or SSD
    - removed virtual memory
    - removed Indexing
    - no defender active (removed him via registry)
    - removed any background tasks which are not Microsoft (no antivirus anymore)
    - and of course checked offline the whole system for virus/rootkits/trojans etc..
    - no Win10 updates active (was a hard part to get that going)
    - tools which is specifically designed to avoid drive standby
    - fresh install (original source, no changes, no updates) is the same btw. - had a serious of SSDs and M2 - all with different Win10 versions to test that - on different PCs

    That all seems to depend on the version of Win10. 1903+ seem to be the problem maker. The older ones had this issue too but not to that extend.

    Win10 is partly so unreliable that while working it installs in the background their updates and if driver parts are updated but no reboot done (which is completely ridiculous to reboot an working system only because of an update and partly simply not possible) then parts of the hardware slow down. This may not be an issue for a home PC but in the professional area this is one of the worst issues. That is the reason why most in the professional area want to avoid Win10 like the pest. But since beginning of this year there are no real other options if the company is dependent on Win10 due to applications. A fellow who is programming for ERPs accepted it that LAN goes down to 50% in some cases. For me that is an absolute nogo. A solution to change to Linux is much work at moment but the main applications are running under Win10. This is a real problem. Changing everything to WinServer may be a solution but hey... pay that. One fellow who owns a big metal molding company has started to use WinServer2019 instances instead of Win10 Pro/Enterprise. That was a bummer... like I said - without humor and a tad sarcasm some things in this world would drive you crazy...
  12. Tanise Elder

    The more important question is why do you still have mechanical hard drives?
    Hitty likes this.
  13. Havanap Elder

    I reported this a while back. When you run EQ as administrator, it will spin up all your hard drives whenever you log in or zone (it’s definitely eqgame.exe that does it). I believe it’s something to do with some old Sony anti-cheat/snoop ware mechanism which doesn’t work any more unless you run as admin. Stuff like wineq forces eqgame to run as admin. If you run eq normally through the launchpad your drives don’t get spun up.
  14. Hitty Augur

    I could have posted that... yes yes and yes. But....
    ...there is video data in our studio on the server which extends all in all around 50TB. Buy that in SSD or even NVMe.... the only solution is a fileserver linked with a RDMA LAN over 25GBit+ on Linux but this is only in the "planning" stage atm. One solution at moment was encrypting everything via e.g. Veracrypt so that Win10 cannot access the data structure and that works at moment. If drives are really in need, then they get mounted. That additionally solves some issues with the GPDR if drives getting destroyed and warranty is used. Else we can destroy them (from the hardware side). This is also a nice solution for SSD/M2 which have no hardware encryption because warranty gives data possibly to another company.

    But yes, customers only get M2 from me nowadays - at least if they don't need more then 2TB which can get very expensive. But a 1TB Samsung NVMe should be in ones purse.

    @Havanap:
    sadly.. it is not EQ alone... but good to know.. but here my instances are running all with admin.
  15. svann Augur

    How do you know your hdd is spinning up? They arent loud enough to hear anymore afaik.
  16. Hitty Augur

    They are loud enough because the test system is open and the drives are not inside, they are on the test bench. And perhaps to add, I am specialist in ultra low noise custom design. Most here is in watercooling and ecapsulated pumps. The fans are around 11db max. Every noise a HD is making is loud in that environment.
    Another reason to ban the hd with file server out of the working space.
  17. Angahran Augur

    Until SSD matches HDD price per gig, I for one will keep using HDDs.
    Fanra likes this.
  18. Natal Augur



    .
  19. Ferriciean Lorekeeper

    Your spinning disks could be used for VSS or paging, perhaps. Check out your VSS stuff using this in command line (run as admin)

    vssadmin list shadowstorage
  20. xxGriff Augur

    Because 8tb SSD's are insanely priced and to replace my 8tb mirror array would be $2,400+ and the (my) data does not require the thru put or access speeds provided by SSD. now, if you're offering to provide x2 8tb SSD's... there are some samsung that i think would work :rolleyes:
    Fanra likes this.