HDD usage 100% windows 10

[Vega11]

i have an all in one pc i got free

i3 2120 6gb ddr3 ram 1tb hdd gt 525m 1gb

 

its running windows 10 would anybody know why the hdd usage is so high its almost 100% all the time
its a Western Digital Caviar Green  https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/749360-REG/Western_Digital_WD10EARS_WD_Caviar_Green_SATA.html so it should be fine
that was the second hdd in sisters pc she hardly used the hdd i tested it and its has no problems

most things in task manger only show 0.1mb 0.2mb of hdd used 1/2 sometimes show up and use 0.5mb to 3.0mb or so

so looking at this 100% of my hdd is not getting used but it says it is

i disabled superfetch that did not help

 

what can i do

[flibberdipper]

Well assuming a fresh Windows install doesn't fix it, the problem is Windows itself. WD Greens aren't exactly performant OS drives to start with, but if there's something fucky with your install the problem will only get worse.

[bmx6454]

installing an ssd would solve the issue for sure.

[Vega11]

5 minutes ago, flibberdipper said:

Well assuming a fresh Windows install doesn't fix it, the problem is Windows itself. WD Greens aren't exactly performant OS drives to start with, but if there's something fucky with your install the problem will only get worse.

its a fresh install i did 5 days ago

[Vega11]

3 minutes ago, bmx6454 said:

installing an ssd would solve the issue for sure.

really did not want to get an ssd due to the prices here in new Zealand are high and since the pc so old there is no real point

[flibberdipper]

4 minutes ago, Vega11 said:

its a fresh install i did 5 days ago

If it's happening on a fresh install and it's not Windows Update pinning the drive, unfortunately you're kinda stuck with it.

 

2 minutes ago, Vega11 said:

since the pc so old there is no real point

I mean, no. If you've got a use for it, pretty much every PC can see a benefit from having a half-decent SSD.

[Vega11]

8 minutes ago, flibberdipper said:

If it's happening on a fresh install and it's not Windows Update pinning the drive, unfortunately you're kinda stuck with it.

 

I mean, no. If you've got a use for it, pretty much every PC can see a benefit from having a half-decent SSD.

i would only use the pc to play old pc games maybe and watch some videos

[flibberdipper]

9 minutes ago, Vega11 said:

i would only use the pc to play old pc games maybe and watch some videos

Might as well start scoping out some better storage then. If you feel like keeping the current drive around for storage, you could pick up a SATA to USB adapter and then literally the cheapest SSD possible. This one is looks like it's 35 NZ dollarydoos. https://nz.pcpartpicker.com/product/CR97YJ/gigabyte-120gb-25-solid-state-drive-gp-gstfs31120gntd

 

EDIT: Completely escaped my mind, but you could also look into throwing something like Kubuntu on it if you don't want to spend money on an SSD, assuming of course you don't really care about maybe not being able to play the games you wanted on it. Likely the biggest hiccup would just be the whole Nvidia thing.

[Archer42]

19 minutes ago, Vega11 said:

i would only use the pc to play old pc games maybe and watch some videos

IMO - do not use win10 then. Use 7, 8, or linux.

Win10 really assumes you are going to use ssd and does not work well on hdd-s.

[Vega11]

37 minutes ago, Archer42 said:

IMO - do not use win10 then. Use 7, 8, or linux.

Win10 really assumes you are going to use ssd and does not work well on hdd-s.

what version of windows 7 would you recommend also windows 7 seems too outdated now days
that's why i went for windows 10 and i do not like the windows 8 user interface

also my nephew runs windows 10 on his old laptop using a old 1 TB 5400 rpm SATA hdd and a8 7410 6gb ram and does not have this problem

[Archer42]

1 hour ago, Vega11 said:

what version of windows 7 would you recommend also windows 7 seems too outdated now days
that's why i went for windows 10 and i do not like the windows 8 user interface

Latest.

You are going to run it on appropriately outdated hardware, so the fact that it is outdated is good.

You'll also have less compatibility issues with old software/games you were planning to run.

 

1 hour ago, Vega11 said:

also my nephew runs windows 10 on his old laptop using a old 1 TB 5400 rpm SATA hdd and a8 7410 6gb ram and does not have this problem

Check your hdd is not broken then. Start by reading SMART.

That said running win10 on slow and/or old hdd-s is always a pain, your nephew probably is very patient man...

[Vega11]

2 hours ago, Archer42 said:

Latest.

You are going to run it on appropriately outdated hardware, so the fact that it is outdated is good.

You'll also have less compatibility issues with old software/games you were planning to run.

 

Check your hdd is not broken then. Start by reading SMART.

That said running win10 on slow and/or old hdd-s is always a pain, your nephew probably is very patient man...

i did a disk cleanup under the c drive properties that removed the windows update files temp files ect and i watch the disk usage in task manger for like 4mins and it went from min 3% to a max of 39% most of the time  but 2 times randomly  it did go to 100% for like 3 or 4sec or so and sometimes randomly for maybe up to 8 seconds would drop to 0% to 4%

[LogicalDrm]

4 hours ago, Vega11 said:

i did a disk cleanup under the c drive properties that removed the windows update files temp files ect and i watch the disk usage in task manger for like 4mins and it went from min 3% to a max of 39% most of the time  but 2 times randomly  it did go to 100% for like 3 or 4sec or so and sometimes randomly for maybe up to 8 seconds would drop to 0% to 4%

One issue you might be seeing is the drive speed actually being bottleneck. The WD Green lineup is intended for long-term storage (ie. cheap backup). The drives are only 5400rpm, compared to Blue and Black being 7200rpm. Plus the age of the drive, and how much its been used. Quick search says that you might be seeing something close to 60Mb/s read/write speeds. Of this, seeing multiple software using some 1-3Mb/s and you get quickly to high usage numbers.

 

So the fix would be to limit software running in the background, disable any automatic updates, searches, scans etc. (anti-virus included). Or move to some OS where the amount of background processes is already optimized (light-weight Linux's).

[Vega11]

10 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

One issue you might be seeing is the drive speed actually being bottleneck. The WD Green lineup is intended for long-term storage (ie. cheap backup). The drives are only 5400rpm, compared to Blue and Black being 7200rpm. Plus the age of the drive, and how much its been used. Quick search says that you might be seeing something close to 60Mb/s read/write speeds. Of this, seeing multiple software using some 1-3Mb/s and you get quickly to high usage numbers.

 

So the fix would be to limit software running in the background, disable any automatic updates, searches, scans etc. (anti-virus included). Or move to some OS where the amount of background processes is already optimized (light-weight Linux's).

the first os i tried on this was ubuntu but had no proper support for the gpu so watching videos there was so much screen tearing so i went for windows 10

[LogicalDrm]

3 minutes ago, Vega11 said:

the first os i tried on this was ubuntu but had no proper support for the gpu so watching videos there was so much screen tearing so i went for windows 10

Quoting the other famous Linus "Nvidia, f u".

[Vega11]

decided to just install Batocera.linux and use the pc for playing old retro games and some old pc games like halo in wine