What Process is Using Your I/O?

This year OrcsWeb released our Windows Cloud Server product.  As part of that offering, a base amount of disk transactions (I/O) is included, and then you are billed for any usage above that.  A common question that arises is how to determine what is using the I/O on your server.

The easiest way to get a quick view into your I\O usage is to use Task Manager.  I will show you how to find that information.  First you need to open up Task Manager.  To do this, right click the task bar and choose Start Task Manager.  When you have it running, click the Processes tab.  Then from the menu choose View -> Select Columns... 
 
 
This will bring up the Select Process Page Columns.  Scroll down to the bottom and put a check beside I/O Reads, I/O Writes, I/O Read Bytes, and I/O Write Bytes. 
 
 
Click OK when you are finished and the columns will be added to Task Manager.  You should note that the numbers listed in Task Manager are totals for each of those items since the last boot of the system. 
 
Here is a description of the columns of the counters that were added to Task Manager above.
 
I/O Reads -  The number of read input/output operations generated by a process, including file, network, and device I/Os. I/O Reads directed to CONSOLE (console input object) handles are not counted.
I/O Writes - The number of write input/output operations generated by a process, including file, network, and device I/Os. I/O Writes directed to CONSOLE (console input object) handles are not counted.
I/O Read Bytes - The number of bytes read in input/output operations generated by a process, including file, network, and device I/Os. I/O Read Bytes directed to CONSOLE (console input object) handles are not counted.
I/O Write Bytes - The number of bytes written in input/output operations generated by a process, including file, network, and device I/Os. I/O Write Bytes directed to CONSOLE (console input object) handles are not counted.
 
You can look at the new columns that are showing up in Task Manager and see the processes that have used the most I/O since the last reboot of the server.  Often this is all the information you need to narrow down the top I/O usage per process.
 
Sometimes using Task Manager is not enough to help you narrow down the usage.  Maybe you need to know what is using the I\O right now or want to paint a picture of I\O usage over the next 7 days.  That is a good job for Performance Monitor.  Before we look at how to add the counters to Performance Monitor, here is the mapping of the Task Manager Columns that were described above and their corresponding Performance Monitor Counters:
 
Task Manager Performance Monitor
I/O Reads Process\I/O Read Operations/sec
I/O Writes Process\I/O Write Operations/sec
I/O Read Bytes Process\I/O Read Bytes/sec
I/O Write Bytes Process\I/O Write Bytes/sec
 
To start up Performance Monitor click the Start button.  In the 'Search programs and files' text box enter perfmon. 
 
 
Select perfmon that shows up in the results to open up Performance Monitor.  Once you have it open, select Performance Monitor from the left menu so that it is highlighted.  That will start allowing Performance Monitor to collect information.  Next click the green Plus icon to add a counter. 
 
 
When the Add Counters dialog window comes up, look for the Process object and click the plus to the right of it.  That will expand the counters that are under the Process object.  Based on the information that you got from Task Manager above, you can now add the appropriate counter.  You will notice that when you select a counter it also wants to know if you want the _Total (the total amount from all processes for that counter), 'all instances' which will add all the instances to Performance Monitor, or a specific process.  I recommend that you set the counter up for one or more specific processes that you previously found with the total highest I/O listed in Task Manager.  Choosing 'all instances' will make it hard to read the results and might cause some additional resource usage on your server. 

 
Using this information you should now be able to track down what is using the most I/O on your system.

NOTE:  The step by step instructions in this article are based on Windows 2008 R2.  The I/O information pertains to earlier Operating Systems as well but the actual steps might be different.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, July 27 2010   |   Tagged as:   |   Rick Barber   |   Comments

Follow Us On Twitter

OrcsWeb is on Twitter if you want to follow us there: http://twitter.com/orcsweb

I'm there too if you want to follow me directly: http://twitter.com/bradkingsley

Thursday, July 22 2010   |   Brad Kingsley   |   Comments

VistaDB Ending - SQL Server Compact Starting

VistaDB, an xcopy deployable database platform for Microsoft .Net applications, has announced it is closing up shop.

Thankfully, for developers who understand and appreciate the benefits of an xcopy deployable database model, Microsoft has recently announced SQL Server Compact Edition 4.0. It's still in Community Preview, but initially looks very exciting and certainly worth checking out.

Wednesday, July 21 2010   |   Tagged as: , , , ,   |   Brad Kingsley   |   Comments

My PC (Windows 7) Boot Speed

My desktop PC boots in 1 minute 14 seconds.

Does anyone have a system that boots faster?

I'm running Windows 7 from an Intel SSD drive.

UPDATE: My desktop gets to the login prompt in about 49 seconds, then takes 25 seconds to load all services and connect to the network. My laptop takes only 23 seconds to reach the login prompt but then takes 34 seconds to load all services and connect to the network. So, it seems that the POST items are what takes so long for my desktop.

UPDATE: It takes 26 seconds just to get through my BIOS POST stuff. I enabled "Quick Boot" in the BIOS and that made it 4 seconds faster.

UPDATE: I manually set my drive connection in the BIOS and disabled the automatic scanning for new drives; that cut another 6 seconds from my boot time.

Tuesday, July 20 2010   |   Tagged as: , ,   |   Brad Kingsley   |   Comments

Internet-Everywhere - Another Multi-Touch Web Table

I mentioned the Microsoft Surface back in 2007 as a new innovative product from Microsoft, but it doesn't seem to have gone anywhere since release.

I recently saw an announcement about a product named mTouch, which appears to be a very similar competing product by Merel Technologies. It will be interesting to see if this catches on.

As a business owner or a web developer, why should you care? As a web host, why do I care?

Read More ⇒

Thursday, July 15 2010   |   Tagged as: , , , ,   |   Brad Kingsley   |   Comments

iPhone Backups Are Super-Fast!

I posted about issues with the iPhone's backups speeds a few weeks ago. I certainly wasn't the only one experiencing this issue - a Google search returned tons of online discussions by people looking for a way to address the issue.

Well, I've found the solution - or should I say that Apple finally provided a solution - iOS4. Since upgrading my iPhone to iOS4 the backups take about 5 seconds. Literally - I'm seeing 4-5 second backup times when I plug in my iPhone since the upgrade.

So we've moved from several hours down to about 5 seconds. That's quite the improvement Apple. Too bad that it took so long and a full OS upgrade to address, but kudos for making sure it got addressed!

Wednesday, July 14 2010   |   Tagged as: ,   |   Brad Kingsley   |   Comments

Cloud Storage and IO Requests / Transactions

By definition a public cloud solution is going to have some component of multi-tenant storage. It's that storage, which is accessible by multiple devices at the same time, that allows for node fault-tolerance, resource balancing, resource bursting, affordable scaling, and other cloud features.

Storage devices though have two major resource limits - the amount of storage available (total space) and the amount of sustainable IOPs (total performance).

Read More ⇒

Tuesday, July 13 2010   |   Tagged as: , , , ,   |   Brad Kingsley   |   Comments

Client Comment - Springbox

"Great service, love working with ORCS Web." -Mike Nowlin; Director of Technology; Springbox (www.springbox.com)

Thanks Mike - It's great working with your team too!

Thursday, July 08 2010   |   Tagged as: , ,   |   Brad Kingsley   |   Comments

‘Google Me’ Is Real, And It’s Gunning For Facebook

I mentioned in December 2009 how iGoogle took over my search screen and how it looked like they might have plans to attack the social media market (MySpace and Facebook specifically). Well, now more information is surfacing that lines up with what I'd mentioned last year. Here is a post from a few days ago where Facebook's former CTO mentions "Google Me" and how it is going directly after Facebook's market.

Has Facebook developed enough of a competitive advantage to prevent Google from taking over the social media space? It will be interesting to watch things develop. The social media landscape might look very different in a couple of years.

Wednesday, July 07 2010   |   Tagged as: , , ,   |   Brad Kingsley   |   Comments

We're Expanding Our Team - Now Hiring Server / IIS Administrator

If you are experienced with Windows Server and IIS, appreciate challenging situations and problem solving, enjoy exposure to new technologies, like working with clients, and are a really nice and cool person - send a copy of your resume to us. We're expanding the team and reviewing resumes for Windows Server / IIS Administrators.

Here is a link to the full job posting: http://www.orcsweb.com/careers/

If you consider yourself a know-it-all rock star or are jumping around jobs in constant search for more money, do not apply.

Tuesday, July 06 2010   |   Brad Kingsley   |   Comments

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