Ubuntu 10.04 hard drive light flashing every second

Asked by Joshua Buchanan

I noticed that the hard drive indicator started to flash every second or so a couple days ago (Ubuntu 10.04). What could cause this activity during idle and how do I check what is causing it.

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Federico Tello Gentile (federicotg) said :
#1

Install iotop.

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Joshua Buchanan (lesliesgeek) said :
#2

I searched for iotop and found its use, installed and ran. I very quickly
see an entry that looks something like "jdb sda 1-8" flash every 1-10
seconds. I think I remember a batch of updates come late last week, could
this be related?

On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 9:40 AM, Federico Tello Gentile <
<email address hidden>> wrote:

> Your question #154309 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/154309
>
> Status: Open => Answered
>
> Federico Tello Gentile proposed the following answer:
> Install iotop.
>
> --
> If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let us
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Federico Tello Gentile (federicotg) said :
#3

That's the kernel. It's normal.

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Federico Tello Gentile (federicotg) said :
#4

Every 5 seconds (by default), the disk cache (or the journal, I'm not sure) is synchronized with the disk. There's always something new to write to the disk as the kernel logs many things. See in System -> Administration -> System Log.

You can increase that time, but you increase the risk of data loss in case of an unclean shutdown.

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