December 8, 2010 at 23:24SSD: Determine how many bytes and where it was written
You want to buy an SSD, but have heard a lot of scary stories about their lifespan and are afraid that you can quickly finish your new SSD? Or are you already the owner of this disk and want to identify which applications are most consuming disk resources? The utility from Sysinternals Process Monitor will help us with this . It will show how many bytes and in what files were written, as well as help you know what process it is up to. Immediately sorry for the too detailed description of the steps, I try to make sure that no one has questions. Let's get started. Download Process Monitor (no installation required) and ...
At startup, the program will ask you to create a filter (if it does not, then in the main menu Filter \ Filter). We need events only about accessing the SSD disk (s) (by default C: \), so the filter is this:
Path -> Begins with -> C: \ -> Include.
Add it with the Add button, then I recommend that you go through the filters below the default list and remove the filters for accessing the swap file, because we need an objective opinion - is the swap file worth it to leave it on the system disk. In general, it most likely makes sense to remove almost all the filters from there, except perhaps excepting Process Explorer itself from the list of events.
The screenshot shows that I added the path E: \, this is only because my SSD is divided into two sections. If you have the same, then do not forget to add a second path.
Next, we note the time. For example, I spotted 5 minutes, and at this time I continued to do my usual business. Perhaps it’s worth noting half an hour, although I’m not sure that the program will handle so many records, although I didn’t check it. After a while, stop logging (CTRL + E)
Go to Tools \ File summary We are interested in the columns Write Bytes and Path. At the top, the total number of bytes written will be written, sorted by the Write Bytes column and in the Path path we look into which files the most intense bytes are written. It is not surprising if this turns out to be a swap file, although if you did not particularly download and close the programs, then perhaps the size of the entries in the swap file will not be so severe. For example, I discovered that Opera is actively writing to the global_history.dat file, so I moved it away from sin. Also, the tabs at the top of this window allow you to select the display mode - by file, folder and extension. Analyze further and already think yourself what you are ready to give up for the sake of SSD health. Good luck! ps: I accept offers about where this topic needs to be moved
0) Put filters
At startup, the program will ask you to create a filter (if it does not, then in the main menu Filter \ Filter). We need events only about accessing the SSD disk (s) (by default C: \), so the filter is this:
Path -> Begins with -> C: \ -> Include.
Add it with the Add button, then I recommend that you go through the filters below the default list and remove the filters for accessing the swap file, because we need an objective opinion - is the swap file worth it to leave it on the system disk. In general, it most likely makes sense to remove almost all the filters from there, except perhaps excepting Process Explorer itself from the list of events.
The screenshot shows that I added the path E: \, this is only because my SSD is divided into two sections. If you have the same, then do not forget to add a second path.
1) The process has started
Next, we note the time. For example, I spotted 5 minutes, and at this time I continued to do my usual business. Perhaps it’s worth noting half an hour, although I’m not sure that the program will handle so many records, although I didn’t check it. After a while, stop logging (CTRL + E)
2) We look at the statistics
Go to Tools \ File summary We are interested in the columns Write Bytes and Path. At the top, the total number of bytes written will be written, sorted by the Write Bytes column and in the Path path we look into which files the most intense bytes are written. It is not surprising if this turns out to be a swap file, although if you did not particularly download and close the programs, then perhaps the size of the entries in the swap file will not be so severe. For example, I discovered that Opera is actively writing to the global_history.dat file, so I moved it away from sin. Also, the tabs at the top of this window allow you to select the display mode - by file, folder and extension. Analyze further and already think yourself what you are ready to give up for the sake of SSD health. Good luck! ps: I accept offers about where this topic needs to be moved
