Disk usage goes up to 100% when downloading from steam

[Profesor Bacterio]

These last few months I've had problems with the SSD I use to download games, and I think I've finally found the problem, whenever I start downloading any game, the download drops to 0MB/s and the disk usage tops to 100%, and when I pause the download, it drops to 0%
Any ideas how to fix this issue? Is it a hardware or software issue?

[Fall2YrDoom]

You have either malware or a virus.. It's on your end..

[Profesor Bacterio]

I have neither, I've run tests on Malware bytes, Avast and various other antiviruses and the outcome is clean all the time

[smokerob79]

test the drive with crystal disc and see if you are getting rated speeds out of it.....

[Profesor Bacterio]

Used Crucial Storage Executive and doesn't seem to show anything unusual (from my knowledge)

[Elucidator]

Originally posted by Antarios Emprius:

Any ideas how to fix this issue?

No. This is because I need to imagine what the cause is of the issue you describe, and so I am making a guess...
Since a guess doesn't match reality by default, fixing this same guess likely won't fit your issue. It's like throwing rocks at a target blindfolded and you have no clue in even what direction you're looking or how far away the target is.

Originally posted by Antarios Emprius:

Is it a hardware or software issue?

Hardware obviously.
Your disk is busy so it cannot write.
What the cause of this is, idk. It could be hardware controller, some software sided configuration, etc.

There are thing you could try, but ---
here's another question: what if the disk is simply busy because it is patching the game using what it just downloaded, rather than blocking off any activity on Steam / related to the game?

Just because it is busy doesn't tell me you know what it is doing or why it is busy.

Maybe it is important for the download?

...
Try disabling write caching on the device and see if it does anything. (in case you really want to try stuff)

[Profesor Bacterio]

Originally posted by Elucidator:

Originally posted by Antarios Emprius:

Any ideas how to fix this issue?

Try disabling write caching on the device and see if it does anything. (in case you really want to try stuff)

Already have it activated, seems to make little to no change

[Satoru]

Steam patches are highly disk IO intensive. they

1) read your original file
2) calculate the new file from the patch data
3) recreate the new file

If you have spinning disk then you're simply running out of IO due to how patching works

The only other variable is your anti-virus can be throttling the disk read/write process. Adding whitelisting for steam in your anti-virus can improve patching performance.

[Profesor Bacterio]

I checked and I think my SSD is just dying, will have to check that out with support. Thanks for the help!

[nullable]

Well it might be worth mentioning which SSD. There can be a large spectrum of performance and behavior depending on the model. SATA, NVMe, dramless etc. High disk usage isn't a problem per se. Assuming it should be less, or wanting it to be less may not be productive and trying to control the behavior because you want something else may just be crazy making.

Of course rule out any issues, and if the drive is dying according to test results that's a horse of a different color. But over the years I've definitely seen people stuck on the idea that behavior they don't understand is a problem and that's not always the case. So it does warrant the question: "is this a real problem? or a problem I'm making up?"

[Satoru]

Originally posted by Antarios Emprius:

I checked and I think my SSD is just dying, will have to check that out with support. Thanks for the help!

Note you should run a SMART diagnostic on your drive. That will indicate if your drive is dying or not. SSD drives actually have about 20% 'extra' space on them. While the firmware will always try to spread out write cycles around, if one part of the SSD dies, it will use the extra space it has to move your data out of those bad sectors.

CrystalDiskInfo is a good freeware tool to look at your drive's health. If CrystalDiskInfo says "Good" the drive is generally fine. Don't get hung up on all the weird numbers unless you know what they actually mean.

[Profesor Bacterio]

I tried crystaldiskinfo, cant change disk drive