% Disk Time May Exceed 100 Percent in the Performance Monitor MMC (310067)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP1
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP2
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP2
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP1
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP2
This article was previously published under Q310067

SYMPTOMS

Your third-party monitoring tool may generate multiple alarm events during times when your disk is very busy. If you monitor the Physical %Disk Time on your Windows 2000-based computer, you may note that the value may go over 100 percent if your computer is very busy. For example, this could occur if you are copying a large amount of files, or you are copying multiple large files, and so on.

CAUSE

This behavior can occur because some controllers allow the operating system to use overlapping input/output operations for multiple outstanding requests. The disk performance counters time the responses by using a 100 nanosecond precision counter, and then report the cumulative statistics for a given sample time. This sample time could go over 100 percent if, for example, you have 10 requests that completed in 2 milliseconds each in a 10 millisecond sampling interval. If you have multiple disks in a Raid arrangement, the overlapped input/output happens because the operating system can read and write to multiple disks, and this could show values that are higher than 100 percent for this counter.

STATUS

This behavior is by design.

MORE INFORMATION

An accurate way to examine or monitor the disk usage (busy) time is to check the %Idle Time, and then use the following calculation:

%100 - %Idle Time

There are several other values you can use to monitor disk performance, and this topic is described in detail in Chapter 30 - Examining and Tuning Disk Performance, of the Windows 2000 Professional Resource Kit, and TechNet monthly CD-ROMs also have this chapter. However, it is important to note that the %Disk Time description there incorrectly states a registry key to clamp the values at %100 exists as that would be misleading.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:12/4/2003
Keywords:kbenv kbfix kbprb kbui kbWin2000PreSP3Fix KB310067
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