Why does win10 use HDD 100% these days?

Recently had the 100% HDD utilisation problem on a Dell laptop...tried everything online...finally resolved the issue by stopping some of the Dell services running in the background - let me know if you on a Dell and I'll look for the specific details of what I stopped.
 
AfricanTech said:
I recommend a fresh install of Windows.

Your data is stored / backed up in the cloud or a secondary drive right?
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In my experience once this particular issue grabs hold even that doesn't help.

The issue with Win 10 and mechanical drives was so elusive and strange I was almost starting to think there was a conspiracy about a huge batch of bad mechanical drives being swept under the rug, and nobody was looking. That would explain why some people have it and others don't (with same hardware/drivers/vanilla install etc.). I even tried to raise it on forums elsewhere, but got given the usual shpeel about superfetch and SSD 10x better so I'm just imagining things and bla bla bla (as if I can't google).
 
Bobbin said:
In my experience once this particular issue grabs hold even that doesn't help.

The issue with Win 10 and mechanical drives was so elusive and strange I was almost starting to think there was a conspiracy about a huge batch of bad mechanical drives being swept under the rug, and nobody was looking. That would explain why some people have it and others don't (with same hardware/drivers/vanilla install etc.). I even tried to raise it on forums elsewhere, but got given the usual shpeel about superfetch and SSD 10x better so I'm just imagining things and bla bla bla (as if I can't google).
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If it's a Dell, try stopping some of the auxiliary Dell services that run in the background
 
Techno2000 said:
If it's a Dell, try stopping some of the auxiliary Dell services that run in the background
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I've heard of that, and it could be in some cases. I think I had read of that somewhere. It's worth OP to try that.

But I've personally seen the issue on a gaming laptop few years back (Can't remember which), some random HP's and Dells.

Usually starts with a user complaining their laptop is super slow. It gets to the workshop and every time the tech spends days trying to figure it out (Not helped by performance being so slow you can hardly manoeuvre around troubleshooting). Eventually we just said fk it, replace every one with SSD. An SSD is worth like 1 - 2 hours labor anyway and user is happy with how snappy SSD is, everyone wins.
 
Bobbin said:
but got given the usual shpeel about superfetch and SSD 10x better so I'm just imagining things and bla bla bla (as if I can't google).
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This so much.

As if almost every article giving "solved 5-10 things to try" having comments of "this does nothing for me" is not a clue that this is clearly not a fix.

Funny enough I actually noticed anecdotally that the machines that have the most trouble have the slowest CPU's. This affects both these bugs and initial startup though the slow startup speed might actually have it's roots in these bugs.

At this point I am actually surprised a SSD was not a hard requirement for win11, maybe they are literally assuming everyone already is running on SSD's.
 
@rambo919 Just a random test unless you have tried already. Try disabling system managed pagefile and setting both min/max to around 6250mb equally for a start.

Apparently a small page file can contribute to a lot of page faults (missing info, have to re-retrieve lost info) which causes HDD IO to increase. Also system managed page file resizing/shrinking apparently can fragment the page file data too. (I'm not 100% sure of these but makes sense I guess)

So forcing a decent size fixed page file might in theory reduce HDD IO significantly for mechanical drives.
 
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Bobbin said:
@rambo919 Just a random test unless you have tried already. Try disabling system managed pagefile and setting both min/max to around 6250mb equally for a start.

Apparently a small page file can contribute to a lot of page faults (missing info, have to re-retrieve lost info) which causes HDD IO to increase. Also system managed page file resizing/shrinking apparently can fragment the page file data too. (I'm not 100% sure of these but makes sense I guess)

So forcing a decent size fixed page file might in theory reduce HDD IO significantly for mechanical drives.
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Doesn't work, I do that by default on all installs to 2x RAM size.
 
Bobbin said:
@rambo919 Just a random test unless you have tried already. Try disabling system managed pagefile and setting both min/max to around 6250mb equally for a start.

Apparently a small page file can contribute to a lot of page faults (missing info, have to re-retrieve lost info) which causes HDD IO to increase. Also system managed page file resizing/shrinking apparently can fragment the page file data too. (I'm not 100% sure of these but makes sense I guess)

So forcing a decent size fixed page file might in theory reduce HDD IO significantly for mechanical drives.
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Did that, mildly helps but extremely long startups are still an issue.

This popped up on my recommends.
The one big flaw in this guy is his insistence that SSD's are just about as cheap as HDD's..... I am guessing it's not like here where SSD's are 4x the cost of HDD's.......

Either way the general consensus is that windows has stopped bothering to optimize of anything below SSD, 8th gen and TPM...... we literally have no choice in the matter other than to use Linux.

It seems like a combo of memory compression and windows search trying to constantly index the entirety of your HDD's are the chief instigators..... I am considering disabling search and using everything instead on the oldest PC's.
 
rambo919 said:
It seems like a combo of memory compression and windows search trying to constantly index the entirety of your HDD's are the chief instigators..... I am considering disabling search and using everything instead on the oldest PC's.
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Even with that disabled the issue persisted...
 
ponder said:
Even with that disabled the issue persisted...
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Well, we have now thoroughly disproven the assertion that this problem was a myth.... and we have discovered that M$ simply does not care anymore and SSD's are going to be forced on us one way or another.... without our consent if need be.

At least we now know the swing of the wind and why..... as frustrating as it is. I just wish M$ would be honest and update it's minimum requirements.

I did notice as I pointed out before that on faster CPU's the I/O issue is for the most part not a problem..... but i3 and under is automatically slower than any OS should run. Dunno bout i5's.
 
rambo919 said:
Well, we have now thoroughly disproven the assertion that this problem was a myth.... and we have discovered that M$ simply does not care anymore and SSD's are going to be forced on us one way or another.... without our consent if need be.

At least we now know the swing of the wind and why..... as frustrating as it is. I just wish M$ would be honest and update it's minimum requirements.

I did notice as I pointed out before that on faster CPU's the I/O issue is for the most part not a problem..... but i3 and under is automatically slower than any OS should run. Dunno bout i5's.
Click to expand...

Whoever finds a solution to this deserves a nobel prize as i literally tried every 'solution' under the sun & more over several months before I admitted defeat (which grates my ass).
 
rambo919 said:
Well, we have now thoroughly disproven the assertion that this problem was a myth.... and we have discovered that M$ simply does not care anymore and SSD's are going to be forced on us one way or another.... without our consent if need be.

At least we now know the swing of the wind and why..... as frustrating as it is. I just wish M$ would be honest and update it's minimum requirements.

I did notice as I pointed out before that on faster CPU's the I/O issue is for the most part not a problem..... but i3 and under is automatically slower than any OS should run. Dunno bout i5's.
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I was experiencing it on my home PC with an i5 3rd generation and 4GB RAM. Inserted an additional 4GB, and haven't had it reoccur since.
 
I just realized something.... all the PC's having this problem the worst.... don't have TPM 2.0.

I have an i5 with 8GB RAM that has this problem.... with TPM 1.2.

Could that be the link? Could that also be the real reason M$ want's TPM 2.0 on all PC's? As a crutch for their processor intensive telemetry and security?
 
From all the machines that did this, here are my 2 cents. They are divided into 2 groups, the ones that respond to the optimize drive service and those that don't.

Those that do, usually HDD, will immediately start performing, and usually can be fixed by changing drivers for controllers

Those that don't, usually SSD, can be fixed by going back to IDE in bios and doing necessary regedit changes.
 
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