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I would run Disk Error Checking[windows.microsoft.com] for starters. See what that comes up with.
OK, so why is the disk busy? If you looked at Resource Monitor more closely, you'd see that Steam isn't just writing from disk, it's reading from disk too (and also not using any network bandwidth). More specifically, it's reading from (something like) ..Steam\steamapps\common\payday 2\assets\[RANDOM HEX NUMBER].bundle".
It's making a copy of some of the some of the data in some of the files. It's re-using data from files you already have to minimise the patch size. In the case of Payday 2, it ends up needing to re-use much more old data than it needs to download new data, so the rate-limiting step is how fast your disk can work. Which is why a "disk busy" light comes on.
I was hoping that the purpose of this indicator would be slightly more obvious, but I think Valve probably needs to go back to the drawing board on this. Maybe a second progress bar and display of the amount of data that it's reusing?
I do notice this problem always seems to occour on Payday patches, and I know that whenever they patch it doesn't end with that many "new" assets on the disk, but rather than it has to download that much data, but is likely simply replacing data already on the disk and the net result is much less than the download.
However, since that game is the only one that does this kind of work, the steam downloads page only shows a hung download, and to the user it indicates nothing is happening. Basically, they need to also show when a download is "working" on the hard drive and not ready yet for more files to be downloaded. When steam is processing local files, there should be an indicator.
It's because they tend to make relatively small changes to already existing large files. For most games' patches, because the disk is so fast compared to download, the download is the rate-limiting step, i.e. the disk work gets held up waiting for downloading to finish. Because the amount of disk-work that needs doing for Payday 2 patches is so large compared to the download work, it ends up the other way around, the disk-work becomes the rate-limiting step and the download gets held up by the disk work.
All games do that kind of work, it's just much more obvious with Payday 2 for the reasons I mention above. And there is an indicator for when Steam is processing local files: that is literally what the disk busy indicator is for.
It doesn't seem to be doing a very good job of communicating that, though.
Maybe because all my games are on other drives and libraries that do not reside on my OS drive. So maybe having it is possible the indicator within Steam is just broken and could just slowing download progress and such simply because it is busy, but by the OS and Apps, and not Steam perhaps???
Anyone else seem to have the same issue as I stated??
Was agreeing with you on that, not adding to it :D
Sounds... strange. Are you saying your downloads are slow too? Or just adding that since your games reside on the non-OS (and possibly non steam-installed?) hard drive, the indicator doesn't work at all?
Ok I have Steam Client and most games on G drive OK.
I go to properties for a game installed on G drive (again where Steam Client is installed)
After properties comes up, I click back on Library > Downloads so I can see this screen.
Then Verify Game Cache. Now while VGC is going on, this game shows up in Downloads and quickly starts showing how long remaining until finished (this time is for VGC to complete). There is very slight network bandwidth here (only a very small, few KB per sec) but the entire time, says DISK IS IDLE.
Ha what a joke of a feature.
I also have Win7 with all the desktop gadgets on my desktop from AddGadget.com and I can clearly see that during the VGC process, I get only a very very slight % from my C drive (which is what I would expect anyways) but G drive is showing 20-50 mbps read as Steam is performing VGC for a game. So however the disk activity is coded in Steam Client, it is obviously coded all wrong. After doing a few VGC tests like I explained above, I even went and downloaded a different game so it would install it fresh, still same issue.
Steam; seriously just dump the feature. Why is it even needed. People should know that if a game is downloading or you are doing VGC, to just leave the system alone, what is a drive indicator going to do for anyone, really!? Plus when u are doing VGC, Steam doesn't allow you any interaction with anything related to Steam Client while VGC is going on.
Likely fixable if they notice and change the code to reflect which drive the work is being done on.
Your test cases aren't starving the download queue, which is why the light never comes on.
The point of it is to offer explanation as to why sometimes your download rate will fall to zero when you're updating a game, which can cause people to believe that the patch has stalled when it actually hasn't.
As you've identified, there's a mismatch between the way the feature is identified in the UI and what it actually does, because it's not actually directly measuring disk activity. It's a misleading design. I think a better solution would be to indicate the file copy progress as well as download progress; it'd be much more obvious that the patch process isn't stalled.
Ok well I'm glad u explained it then, but I figured I would post an example of what it is not doing and or monitoring. Yes I realize it is not to monitor disk usage like you would in Resource Monitor, as what would be the point of Steam doing that when it is basically already a feature in Windows.
But yes I did further testing with multiple downloads in a que, only then did I ever see it working.
Maybe Steam should explain the feature more, or in depth I suppose. I am sure they do somewhere on Community Discussion and all, but again I think Steam needs something else on their website for people new to steam, like page that gives a visual overview of every feature in Steam Client and explains it. People these days need visual guides in order to function I guess.