Even though I have changed the periods when my hard drive is written too in my preferences, and pressed the "Update" button, nothing seems to change. My hard drive is constantly being written to at perhaps two second intervals.

I have no worries about my CPU being worked at 100% but really do not want my hard drive running continuously.

How else can I get the program to write to my hard drive less frequently?

If I cannot solve this problem soon, I am likely to detach from the project.

Thanks

To assure that your BOINC Manager is using the settings you've configured, you'll want to go to the commands pulldown and assure that the "Run based on preferences" is selected. This gives you a quick way to temporarily override those settings directly from your PC, without going through project preferences websites, and updating to the project etc.

I too have been studying my hard drive usage. I'm trying to use the power settings and get the thing to power down, and maybe only write to it every half hour or so. But, mine keeps running too. Never powers down.

What I'm finding is that the cause is:
1) other applications and services running on Windows.
2) page faults, very few of which are caused by Rosetta tasks.

By the way, I'm studying this by looking at the Task Manager of Windows, and then I went in to the VIEW and "select columns" and I added the columns for PF Delta (page faults since last snapshot), I/O Read, I/O Write, I/O Other.

From that, I conclude that if I had more memory, then Rosetta wouldn't be causing page faults. In my case, I've got a dual-core processor, and so two BOINC processes run at the same time, and so even though I have 1.5GB of memory, Rosetta times 2, plus all the other stuff going on is using all of it. I'm even seeing iTunes tasks kick in and generate page faults... and I've not used it since I rebooted my PC.

I even moved all of my BOINC files out to a network drive, and so all the IO happens over the wire... my hard drive still runs constantly. Never powers down.

So, from this, I infer that my hard drive would be running due to page faults from iTunes (and others) regardless of whether Rosetta was running or not. Do you find this to be the case as well?

I see your 4 machines are all 512MB, the recommended minimum. Looks like they are single CPU though, so your's aren't running two at the same time the way mine does. That helps use less memory. (for future readers, if you DO have dual-cores, you might use less memory, and avoid page faults, if you set your general preferences to only use one CPU).

Please avoid sentences like the last of your post. Everyone's going to try to help you out, as soon as they can... with, or without the threat of you leaving. We're just happier to do it, without.

If you still feel you have a specific problem with Rosetta, please provide more information about what you're observing, why you feel it's abnormal, and (if possible) how you feel it might be resolved. That way at least you've contributed some useful information so the project might take steps to avoid upsetting others in your situation in the future.

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

To assure that your BOINC Manager is using the settings you've configured, you'll want to go to the commands pulldown and assure that the "Run based on preferences" is selected. This gives you a quick way to temporarily override those settings directly from your PC, without going through project preferences websites, and updating to the project etc.

I too have been studying my hard drive usage. I'm trying to use the power settings and get the thing to power down, and maybe only write to it every half hour or so. But, mine keeps running too. Never powers down.

What I'm finding is that the cause is:
1) other applications and services running on Windows.
2) page faults, very few of which are caused by Rosetta tasks.

By the way, I'm studying this by looking at the Task Manager of Windows, and then I went in to the VIEW and "select columns" and I added the columns for PF Delta (page faults since last snapshot), I/O Read, I/O Write, I/O Other.

From that, I conclude that if I had more memory, then Rosetta wouldn't be causing page faults. In my case, I've got a dual-core processor, and so two BOINC processes run at the same time, and so even though I have 1.5GB of memory, Rosetta times 2, plus all the other stuff going on is using all of it. I'm even seeing iTunes tasks kick in and generate page faults... and I've not used it since I rebooted my PC.

I even moved all of my BOINC files out to a network drive, and so all the IO happens over the wire... my hard drive still runs constantly. Never powers down.

So, from this, I infer that my hard drive would be running due to page faults from iTunes (and others) regardless of whether Rosetta was running or not. Do you find this to be the case as well?

I see your 4 machines are all 512MB, the recommended minimum. Looks like they are single CPU though, so your's aren't running two at the same time the way mine does. That helps use less memory. (for future readers, if you DO have dual-cores, you might use less memory, and avoid page faults, if you set your general preferences to only use one CPU).

Please avoid sentences like the last of your post. Everyone's going to try to help you out, as soon as they can... with, or without the threat of you leaving. We're just happier to do it, without.

If you still feel you have a specific problem with Rosetta, please provide more information about what you're observing, why you feel it's abnormal, and (if possible) how you feel it might be resolved. That way at least you've contributed some useful information so the project might take steps to avoid upsetting others in your situation in the future.

Thanks for answering my question. Yes I wreckon I owe Rosetta an apology. When I quit BOINC, my hard drive still gets written too quite often, so obviously there are other processes running in the back ground causing the hard drive activity.

Anyhow my Hard Disk Health software is predicting a hard disk failure in about a months time...so...I am donating what life is left in it to the Rosetta project.

Up to the moment I have gotten 13399 hours of use from the hard drive so I suppose it does'nt owe me much.

As to the multi computers...I had to detach from the project a few times when I first started using BOINC two days or so ago, and it gives the odd impression that I am running a computer farm here! I only am running the one computer, and cannot find away to get rid of all the computer ID's.

I read there used to be a merge function, but that it was done away with, so I guess there is no way for me to get rid of all these ID's. However at the end of the day it's more important that the WU's are being done.

Thanks again for your help, and I will be staying with the project.

Sounds like your hard drive has seen many days of good use. I haven't seen a failure predictor like that before. Perhaps you could post a link to some info? I would have to GUESS that they can't be very accurate. So, maybe a month, maybe a year. If the predictor is based on the MTF (mean time to failure) of the drive, even that has a wide varience I'd think.

I only am running the one computer, and cannot find away to get rid of all the computer ID's.
I read there used to be a merge function, but that it was done away with, so I guess there is no way for me to get rid of all these ID's.

This is one of the things that Rosetta inherits from BOINC. The standard server install that BOINC projects use had a bug with the function to merge hosts together. So, they (Rosetta) just disabled it until BOINC fixes the bug, and then the function will be available again. Your multiple hosts aren't hurting anything. No need to worry about it. When the merge function fix is made, you'll be able to consoladate all of the hosts (and any credits) into one.

However at the end of the day it's more important that the WU's are being done.

HERE HERE!

Thanks again for your help, and I will be staying with the project.

hurray!

Crunch more Rosetta!

Be sure to check out Dr. Baker's Science Journal. He's really doing a great job keeping us informed on progress, and science, and how Rosetta works.

---

Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

Sounds like your hard drive has seen many days of good use. I haven't seen a failure predictor like that before. Perhaps you could post a link to some info? I would have to GUESS that they can't be very accurate. So, maybe a month, maybe a year. If the predictor is based on the MTF (mean time to failure) of the drive, even that has a wide varience I'd think.

I only am running the one computer, and cannot find away to get rid of all the computer ID's.
I read there used to be a merge function, but that it was done away with, so I guess there is no way for me to get rid of all these ID's.

This is one of the things that Rosetta inherits from BOINC. The standard server install that BOINC projects use had a bug with the function to merge hosts together. So, they (Rosetta) just disabled it until BOINC fixes the bug, and then the function will be available again. Your multiple hosts aren't hurting anything. No need to worry about it. When the merge function fix is made, you'll be able to consoladate all of the hosts (and any credits) into one.

However at the end of the day it's more important that the WU's are being done.

HERE HERE!

Thanks again for your help, and I will be staying with the project.

hurray!

Crunch more Rosetta!

Be sure to check out Dr. Baker's Science Journal. He's really doing a great job keeping us informed on progress, and science, and how Rosetta works.

Hi Again Feet1st,

The software regarding the hard drive is found at [url=http://www.drivehealth.com/]

Anyhow it keeps giving me a date for a hard drive failure of between one and two months time. However the price of hard drives have dropped quite a bit in recent years. However I am starting to look at what I need to backup soon just in case.

Anyhow I will keep the puter crunching away anyhow.

When I look at how much credits some users get in a day through using multiple computers it makes my contribution kind of miniscule, however I suppose every little bit helps.

Yes this project seems to be the best for someone actually coming up on the message board and explaining how our help is contributing.

I also get fun looking at the BOINC Stats

Anyhow thanks again for all your help, in the meantime I'll keep floggin this hard drive to death!

If this is a system drive it will never actually sleep (assuming WinXP).

It couls also be your monitoring program that is accessing the drive (well the SMART data anyway) but that light's up the drive.

What drive is it ?

It could also be a Virus scanner, defrag program (e.g. windows built in doing a background scan) etc.

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Team mauisun.org

Hi Again Feet1st,

The software regarding the hard drive is found at [url=http://www.drivehealth.com/]

FYI, these is another Drive health monitor that uses the information supplied by SMART drives available at:-
http://www.panterasoft.com/

This one is free for NCU

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