Linux iotop

Linux iotop: Check What’s Stressing And Increasing Load On Your Hard Disks

by VIVEK GITE on JULY 20, 2012

in HARDWARE, STORAGE

type iotop

The iotop command is top like utility for disk I/O. It watches I/O usage information output by the Linux kernel (requires v2.6.20 or later) and displays a table of current I/O usage by processes or threads on the system. This post expalins how to install and use iotop to find out what's stressing (or program names) on your hard drives under Linux operating systems.

Install iotop

Use the yum command to install iotop under RHEL / CentOS Linux, enter:
# yum install iotop
Sample outputs:

Loaded plugins: auto-update-debuginfo, product-id, protectbase, rhnplugin, subscription-manager
Updating certificate-based repositories.
Unable to read consumer identity
0 packages excluded due to repository protections
Setting up Install Process
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package iotop.noarch 0:0.3.2-3.el6 will be installed
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
Dependencies Resolved
=============================================================================================================================================================================================
 Package                                 Arch                                     Version                                       Repository                                              Size
=============================================================================================================================================================================================
Installing:
 iotop                                   noarch                                   0.3.2-3.el6                                   rhel-x86_64-server-6                                    49 k
Transaction Summary
=============================================================================================================================================================================================
Install       1 Package(s)
Total download size: 49 k
Installed size: 0
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
iotop-0.3.2-3.el6.noarch.rpm                                                                                                                                          |  49 kB     00:00
Running rpm_check_debug
Running Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
  Installing : iotop-0.3.2-3.el6.noarch                                                                                                                                                  1/1
Installed products updated.
  Verifying  : iotop-0.3.2-3.el6.noarch                                                                                                                                                  1/1
Installed:
  iotop.noarch 0:0.3.2-3.el6
Complete!