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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac OS X > What's accessing my hard drive?

What's accessing my hard drive?
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Forum Regular
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Dec 30, 2004, 08:16 AM
 
Is there a utility that can tell me which process is accessing my hard drive? My drive is clicking like mad at the moment yet I'm just browsing the web and top doesn't show anything using a lot of CPU.
     
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Mar 2004
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Dec 30, 2004, 08:28 AM
 
Activity Monitor?

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Dec 30, 2004, 09:00 AM
 
CPU doesn't need to be going nuts to cause a lot of HD access - you just need to have run out of RAM and be paging in/out.
cpac
     
Mac Elite
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Dec 30, 2004, 09:20 AM
 
Try this in terminal, sudo fs_usage and you will see what processes are accessing the file system.
     
Forum Regular
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Dec 30, 2004, 09:24 AM
 
Originally posted by SMacTech:
Try this in terminal, sudo fs_usage and you will see what processes are accessing the file system.
Thanks! That worked well enough - turns out it was MSN Messenger, sigh - but is there a utility that makes that data more readable, as top does for CPU usage?
     
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Dec 30, 2004, 11:01 AM
 
You can try using some of the options outlined in man fs_usage in terminal.
     
   
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