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Re: iotop - or, checking what is accessing a drive


On 3/22/19 4:00 PM, David Wright wrote:

On Fri 22 Mar 2019 at 14:00:24 (-0400), deb wrote:

On 3/22/19 1:48 PM, Curt wrote:

On 2019-03-22, deb <deb@rangingthoughts.org> wrote:

Depending on what's on the disk, it might be more useful to just use
lsof to see what files are open and try to understand what those might
be doing.

I believe you said that the external USB drive's LED remains on, even
after unmounting, and that indicates to you that there's activity on the
drive. I've always labored under the idea that a *flashing* light
indicated activity and a steady one an idle state.

Now it occurs to me that these signal indications may depend on the make
and model of the drive itself.

What should be the behavior of the LED on your drive when the drive is
unmounted and/or inactive?

YES -- this differs by manufacturer.

… and by model, in the case of Seagate.


Just a reminder -- the bulk of mine are Seagate Backup Plus (1-5TB.
USB 3.0).
On Windows, when you dismount (Safely Remove) these
the light goes off.

I've never seen the light go off until it spins down (those that do).


It is On when connected and very dimmly flashed when being accessed.
So, it can flash a bit when indexes are up[dated,
or a file is flushed -- and go right back to steady on.

My 5TB doesn't ever flash or dim; a little annoying.


I only *feel* safe, pulling the cable when the light is OFF.

If you're really worried, first remount the partitions readonly, which
will fail if they're in use. Then unmount them and disconnect.




Good idea David.

I'll add this to the list.
by-the-by, (when I last checked) Windows does NOT have a mount read-only notion.
The recommended approach when I last looked was to rip through each file and folder setting them individually to read-only. 

Guess how long that takes on a 5TB?
Now multiply that guess by an office of drives; with people wanting to switch them back and forth R-O -> W -> R-O 


I love Linux.





Again, I can NOT suffer a data-loss-because-of-Evil-Linux situation,
giving the Windows-folk ammo.

Disks occasionally fail for everyone, irrespective of OS.


I wanted to switch to your name in the Subject Curt,
but Jim P. will yell at me. :-)


Screw it --- I switched it anyway.

I can already see whose post yours is commenting on. The rule is simple:
Change the subject line if the subject changes,
Don't change the subject line if the subject doesn't change.



Ack on the subject-line change.

I am one-time switching this one's back.


Now then -- where ARE these rules?

I'd like to hand a list to new users.

Obviously, I don't know them all.




On a technical point, there are those whose less functional
mail clients thread by subject line rather than Message-ID.
Their threading get totally fragmented by all your changes.

Cheers,
David.
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