Netdata

My linux system regularly write data on disk, I don’t expect this activity, how to find which process does that? - ChatGPT

Netdata is a very common source of constant disk write

By default, netdata writes metrics to disk continuously (its internal database), even if you’re not actively viewing dashboards.

$ sudo iotop -oPa

-o → show only processes actually doing I/O
-P → show per-process (not per-thread)
-a → accumulate I/O over time

Setup

How to setup netdata on linux.

$ sudo systemctl restart netdata

Netdata dashboard

netdata instead of Grafana see netdata/netdata
- Install Netdata with kickstart.sh - script can be customized and accept arguments
  - sudo touch /opt/netdata/etc/netdata/.opt-out-from-anonymous-statistics
  - --disable-telemetry
  - --no-updates

Ram only

# /opt/netdata/netdata-configs/netdata.conf
[global]
    memory mode = ram
    
[health]
    enabled = no
    
[logging]
    debug log = none
    error log = none
    access log = none
    
[registry]
    enabled = no
    
[db]
    mode = ram

Nvidia

# /opt/netdata/netdata-configs/netdata.conf
[plugins]
    nvidia_smi = yes

Written on February 1, 2026, Last update on

monitoring disk