Windows 11 constant micro accessing the HDD

Hi,

I recently installed Windows 11 on a new HDD (not an SSD) and I've noticed that the disk is constantly being accessed. Not in a major way, just constant little accesses all of the time. The little blue light on the top of my PC case that indicates hard disk activity is flashing all of the time too when these little jabs are happening to the disk. I've never seen this before with either XP, 7, or 10.

Is there any way that I can stop Windows from constantly do this because it is very annoying. I can hear the disk being accessed continuously even though the Task Manager says that the disk hovers around 0% when idling

I've been thinking of getting an SSD for the OS for a more silent operation, but I'd still like to know if there's a way to just make Windows 11 stop doing this because I'm not too sure that I want an SSD to getting accessed all the time either.

Tonyeh said:

Hi,

I'm not too sure that I want an SSD to getting accessed all the time either.

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There is a difference of operation between reading and writing; on a SSD only writing will affect its longevity.
Please get an SSD for W11, you will be so much happier with the performance.
There are so many things running that are undetectable via task manager but the disk is indeed accessed constantly.
I am actually surprised that MS hasn't made it a 'recommended requirement'.

BTW, fill out your specs in your profile as RAM has a role to play as well.

I have an SSD and I have also noticed a large number of micro-accesses to the disk when the computer is not in use. I noticed this especially since I upgraded from 22H2 to 23H2. When I installed version 22H2, the light on the SSD barely illuminated. Since 23H2, usage is almost constant. I understand that when the computer is not in use, the disk is used for updates, optimizations, etc., but since 23H2 I find it very excessive.

SI neatly shows, what process is using I/O access.



Also, which processes cause the most disk writes.

My drive light intermittently blinks even when idle and it always has with every kind of drive I've used from hdd to ssd to nvme. Just because I'm not doing anything doesn't mean that windows or one of my applications isn't. Does mine blink more with 11 than it did with 10? I'm not sure because I've never worried about it and monitored the blinks.

See if placing the computer into clean boot makes a difference:



Other available tools: Systernals > process utilities

Autoruns
Process monitor
Process explorer
etc.

In my case, Firefox is what writes permanently to the SSD, according to System Informer. I don´t know why.

I don’t understand the problem? If the light flashing affects you, put tape over it. Otherwise, let Windows do what it has to do.

Any machine I have with a disk activity light is active when Windows is booted, clearly it's normal.

glasskuter said:

My drive light intermittently blinks even when idle and it always has with every kind of drive I've used from hdd to ssd to nvme. Just because I'm not doing anything doesn't mean that windows or one of my applications isn't. Does mine blink more with 11 than it did with 10? I'm not sure because I've never worried about it and monitored the blinks.

Click to expand...

Sure, but this is constantly and it's not the light that the issue, it's the noise from the HDD. It's all the time like a bird tapping at the window every few seconds.

Oddly enough, when the drive is under some load it's completely silent! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In any case I just bought an SSD. Can't be having that stupid noise going on all day.

antspants said:

I don’t understand the problem? If the light flashing affects you, put tape over it. Otherwise, let Windows do what it has to do.

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It's not the light. It's the noise.

Tonyeh said:

Sure, but this is constantly and it's not the light that the issue, it's the noise from the HDD. It's all the time like a bird tapping at the window every few seconds.

Oddly enough, when the drive is under some load it's completely silent! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In any case I just bought an SSD. Can't be having that stupid noise going on all day.

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I have a 4TB Seagate IronWolf as a secondary backup in my system. The rotating memory is to give me a different media than the SSD backup drive, so I have two copies of everything on my primary system drives. Although I see the light flashing, the only logical disks being accessed appear to be the working system, none of the backup drives have any activity. I also don't hear anything from that disk.

The boot drive is the only one doing anything when I'm idle.

So, I ended getting a 1TB SSD and still the HDD is getting these little accesses and spins every couple of seconds. There's not even any files on it?

Might try sending the HDD back to Amazon and see if I can't get a refund on it.

I can't have that stupid rattling going on all day.

That's really odd, the only disk in my system that's getting any action is the boot disk. I can't imagine why any of the others are accessed regularly. I have one rotating memory disk in my system, it's a 4TB drive for backup on dissimilar media for insurance. It looks like this whenever I check it unless the backup is running.

The constant HDD access in W11 is usually caused by a combination of normal background services. When W11 is installed on a HDD it's more noticeable. You can reduce it by turning off Copilot, windows search and indexing if it's slowing your machine down.

DJNelson said:

The constant HDD access in W11 is usually caused by a combination of normal background services. When W11 is installed on a HDD it's more noticeable. You can reduce it by turning off Copilot, windows search and indexing if it's slowing your machine down.

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Copilot has been deleted off the system. Windows 11 has been installed on the SSD. There's, literally, nothing on the HDD.

Tonyeh said:

Copilot has been deleted off the system. Windows 11 has been installed on the SSD. There's, literally, nothing on the HDD.

Click to expand...

In your case, I can't imagine what is accessing the drive, as I showed you, I have an active backup drive and there's no random access to it unless I'm doing a backup.

gunrunnerjohn said:

In your case, I can't imagine what is accessing the drive, as I showed you, I have an active backup drive and there's no random access to it unless I'm doing a backup.

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I don't know either. But the fact is that it was getting these little micro accesses every few seconds which was causing it to shudder and rattle the drive cage.

In any case, I've packed it up and sent it back to Amazon.

Pity having to give up 16tb of storage. But there's no point in keeping it if it's going to drive me nuts.. I have my eye now on a Samsung 4tb SSD or a Sandisk 4tb SSD. Going to check to see which is the better drive.

All my Windows installs have had and have "irregular" (not like a car blinker) access to the HDDs.

Maybe the 16 TB disk was defective in the noise, but from the SMR technology I'd expect nearly anything.. Maybe the 16TB disk was parking its heads constantly???

All my desktops HDDs now are Seagates, ST1000DM003 or ST2000DM006. I've also used an ST1000DM010 until recently (it's perfectly fine, but I replaced it with the 2TB model, that I found very cheap as 2nd hand). All of them are silent under heavy linear work, under heavy random work, under light work or under no work (I must say that desktops have fans, that make a constant and in my case light noise in idle, maybe the HDDs or even the SSDs do some noise under this level). At shutting down these disks park their heads and they do a noticeable metallic sound, about some tenths or 1 second before the fans and the rest stop. These computers have 10 or 7, not 11

My W11 PC is a miniPC with an internal silent eMMC , and an external USB HDD.

At first this disk was a 500 GB "Maxone" from Amazon (the computer started with W10 but in a month or two it was upgraded to 11 through WU). At first its activity behaviour was normal, but from a given time on the LED started to have a regular pattern in idle intervals for no apparent reason, I mean like a car blinker but a more complicated pattern, the LED is constantly ON but it has a blinking interval every 2 seconds or so, that lasts about 1 second. If the disk's working the LED is solid ON. This began in the middle of the 22H2 age (I know it b/c I upgraded it in July 2023 and the "behaviour" started several months or about 1 year before).

I upgraded it to a 2TB Toshiba HDTB420EK3AA (the 500GB disk is fine and I didn't upgrade it for its activity pattern nor LED activity pattern). The stock behaviour of this new HDD was to be stopped until it has to read or write anything, then stops again. I found it adequate for a disk that has my data (which I access relatively seldom) in a smaller partition and my Windows disk images in a bigger partition, although I don't know if it's better to have it ON (spinning) constantly, some or many users think this way (I have my desktops HDDs constantly ON in powercfg etc since the stone age, possibly I heard it's better). But this stock behavior ended when I copied the data and images from the previous disk, and it began to do exactly the same as the previous disk.

As for noise, the heads of neither disk are audible. The Toshiba motor is slightly audible specially when switching on the computer if the ambient is silent, for the contrast. But in the middle of the session you forget it (unlike with the desktops fans). I cannot recall if the Maxone motor was audible.

Windows has been doing this ever since it was invented. It is just how Windows works. It annoys the crap out of me though.

Anyways...either learn to live with it or switch to another OS.