Constant HDD usage

[fixedwheel]

Care to read my first post carefully?

hmm... i see, iotop shows 0%

[Kein]

Yeah, that is what confusing so much... I guess it's exactly Vbox problem with linux virtualization or whatever, because it doesn't happens on guest XP.

[fixedwheel]

problem with linux virtualization or whatever, because it doesn't happens on guest XP.

you did not see [kjournald] in iotop? - you should have, syncing the ext3 filesystem every few seconds ...

[Kein]

Hmm.. I monitored it a bit but most time it writes 11.62-262 Kb/s...
Hm, any idea how to disable it? Not sure if it help but who knows...

[fixedwheel]

any idea how to disable it?

the ext3 sync?
add some mount options in /etc/fstab, have a look at commit= and noatime to decrease ext3 activity

[Kein]

I wonder if it's related: http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12224

[baf]

Another long shot which kernel? If generic try server and vice versa.

[Perryg]

I just fired up my Lenny so I could see what was going on and it too had the constant 20% to 25% load even though iotop showed nothing but an occasional [kjournald] entry . I did an update/upgrade and it puked. I finally got it going but the process usage is still too high for me. I ran the process tests on Ubuntu and they do not do this.

• Ubuntu 8.04 = 2.6.24-24-server 0% - 4% process usage
• Ubuntu 9.04 = 2.6.28-13-server 0% - 4% process usage
• Ubuntu 9.04 = 2.6.28-13-generic 0% - 4% process usage
• Lenny = 2.6.26-2-686 20% - 25% process usage

Edit: Here is a really weird thing. I paused the VM to double check that I had the right process and when I resumed it went down to the same as the Ubuntu OSs. 0% - 4% go figure.

[fixedwheel]

I wonder if it's related: http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12224

not with debian lenny kernel:

• Lenny = 2.6.26-2-686 20% - 25% process usage

Latest working kernel version: 2.6.27.5
Earliest failing kernel version: 2.6.27.6

anyway, i have not seen this on my linux (debian etch, lenny, squeeze) hosts so may be a Virtualbox on Windows bug?

[Kein]

anyway, i have not seen this on my linux (debian etch, lenny, squeeze) hosts so may be a Virtualbox on Windows bug?

Hmmm... Well, may be, because it happens for me with Ubuntu and Fedora10 guests.

[Kein]

Perryg
But mine problem is not a process usage but HDD usage. I don't care if it uses the whole my CPU, but HDD another deal.

[Perryg]

Ahh me too. As you can see my I/O is for the most part flat lined. The only activity I see is when I hit a web page and it will spike to load and then go back to normal. The top is all processes all programs from the Host. The bottom one is for one of the guests.

[Kein]

Anyway, can this be considered as a bug? I guess our Ubuntu ISOs are the same...

[Perryg]

There definitely is something wrong in your case but the real question is where. Is it the Guest OS, VBox, or the way Vista handles the VM/?.
If you feel that you have exhausted all of the paths to determine the problem on your end then the next step would be to file a report though bugtracker (located at the bottom of my post). Be sure that you include the VBox logs and as much information as you can to assist the team in seeing what the problem is.

[fixedwheel]

anyway, i have not seen this on my linux (debian etch, lenny, squeeze) hosts so may be a Virtualbox on Windows bug?

Hmmm... Well, may be, because it happens for me with Ubuntu and Fedora10 guests.

yep, now i see this ... idle running Fedora10, Ubuntu8.04 and XP guests: the only one showing up in the hosts iotop is the Virtualbox Fedora10 session. I guess you are right, looks like http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12224 - Fedora10 kernel is 2.6.27.25-170.2.72.fc10, while Ubuntu kernel 2.6.24-24-generic is not affected