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Ryan B. Lynch
Asked: 2009-06-13 12:50:50 +0800 CST

Linux disk IO load breakdown, by filesystem path and/or process?

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Does anyone have experience with a tool that can provide an indication of disk IO load by filesystem path.

I use to 'iostat' utility, frequently, to learn how much disk activity is taking place on a Linux host. 'iostat' provides a per-device breakdown, so you can see activity on a particular block device. But it doesn't go any deeper than that--you can't, for instance, query the write load generated by 'httpd' in the directory '/var/log/httpd/'.

hard-drive linux

3 Answers

  1. Using htop do the following.

    htop
F5 (Tree view)
F2 (Setup)
Select columns
Select RBYTES WBYTES
F10 (Done)

    And there you go, per process disk I/O, in real time.

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  2. Best Answer

    You can use iotop for that purpose.

    I works like normal top, I cannot say much more. Most distributions will have it packaged, but here is its homepage. You will need a recent kernel.

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  3. Collectl can also show process I/O loads but since it can also monitor virtually all your other system resources you get it all in one tool. For example, you can look at the top i/o or cpu processes right now along with disk, network, etc. BUT you can also play back historic data and display the same types of data. Further, there are actually 7 different process I/O provided by the kernel. Collectl can show them all and even let you sort on them. -mark

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