You may wish to consult your Task Manager if you are experiencing issues like slow response time in Windows 10. You can get a great deal of information about the processes currently running on your computer from Task Manager.
Your computer's disk usage is one of the metrics you can monitor in Task Manager. As soon as you see 100% disk use, your system is maxed out, and you'll see performance degradation. Make sure you take action.
Some Windows 10 users have reported slow computers and 100% disk usage in Task Manager after Upgrading to Windows 10.
What is disk usage?
You can calculate your disk usage by determining how much your computer uses your Hard Drive to run programs. Disk usage is influenced more by your hard drive's performance than its storage capacity.
When Windows 10 uses a lot of disk space, it can overwork your drives and degrade performance, resulting in system crashes and unresponsiveness. Your computing habits may have little to do with the reasons behind high disk usage. New devices can run at 100% disk usage as well. Storage space on your hard drive is not the same as disk usage, which is your storage amount.
If your disk is always at 100% disk usage, the first thing to do is identify what's causing the issue. A disk cleanup or optimization tool can help pinpoint the cause. By addressing the issue directly, your PC will be faster again.
Reasons for high disk usage in Windows 10
Windows 10 can suffer from high disk usage for various reasons, but most boil down to the same problem: too many things running simultaneously.
Swapping and paging are common causes. Computers swap when out of physical memory (RAM) and need more space to store information about their running processes and applications. To do this, they use a swap file on their hard drive. This file is stored in a system file. When Win uses that information to work, it opens the swap file. Swapfile. Sys is constantly accessed and written to, consuming disk space.
In addition, some applications might access the hard drive in an alarming way behind the scenes when they search through or use many files simultaneously. This is expected behavior for many applications, including antivirus software and some utilities included in Windows.
Fixing a 100% Disk Usage on Windows 10
Method 1: Put the computer in restart mode
Restarting your computer will sometimes fix all kinds of problems, as you know from experience. This is not an exception for the 100% disk usage issue in Windows 10. If the pain disappears, it may be sufficient even if you don't learn what caused it.
Use "Restart" instead of "Shut Down" since it will restart your computer in a completely new state instead of preserving your system state and possibly not resolving your disk issue.
Method 2: Temporarily turn off antivirus software
Turning off your antivirus software temporarily may be a good idea when investigating the cause behind your Windows 10 100% disk usage problem. Try it out and see how it affects your disk usage. You may need to change your antivirus packages if that is the case. Windows Defender can increase I/O and network usage by increasing high disk utilization.
Method 3: Turn off the search on Windows
You may be experiencing high disk usage because Windows 8 and 10 have a known bug that causes a search loop. Start an admin prompt and type net.exe to stop "Windows search" to temporarily disable Windows Search so you can see if it improves your disk issue. After this, Windows search will no longer run until the computer is restarted.
The following procedure can be followed if you suspect Windows Search is causing your Windows 10 disk usage to reach 100%:
By pressing the Windows key + R and entering services.MSC, you can bring up the Services window.
An overview of the services will appear. Click Windows Search and its properties will be updated.
Select the Disabled option under Startup type and then OK to save your changes.
Method 4: Scan for malware
Your computer may have been infected with malware, causing a spike in disk usage. Antivirus software should have caught the issue if it is running in the background. Ensure your antivirus package scans your hard drive for any infections. Even though it may take some time because your disk is already heavily used, identifying and removing malicious software may be necessary.
Method 5: Turn off Superfetch
Windows Superfetch is another feature of Windows 10 that can cause problems. To temporarily turn off this service, run net.exe stop superfetch with the same command as Windows search. Turning off the service permanently using the same procedure as turning off Windows Search.
Method 6: Change Energy Options from Balanced to High Performance
This setting change appears to have worked for some users who have experienced 100% disk usage on Windows 10.
You should follow these steps:
Change the power plan settings by clicking Power Options, then Change advanced power settings.
Set all plan settings to their default values and choose the High-performance option from the drop-down box.
Method 7: Update your operating system
Resolving mysterious Windows 10 problems is often possible by installing the latest updates. Select "Update and security" from the Windows Settings app to determine current security.
If there are any new updates available, you can install them.
Windows Update can be found under Settings > Updates & Security
In addition to improving the performance of your hard drive, you may improve your system's performance overall.
Method 8: Setting virtual memory in Windows 10
When no more RAM exists, virtual memory uses the disk as RAM, swapping out temporary files. Pagefile. Sys errors can cause your Windows 10 machine to use 100% disk space. You will need to change your virtual memory settings to fix this issue.
You can reset your virtual memory by following these steps:
Click "Advanced system settings" under "System Properties" on your computer.
Click the "Settings" button in the Performance section.
Click the "Change" button in the "Advanced" tab.
Ensure that the "Automatically manage paging file size" checkbox is selected.
Press OK and then reboot the computer to turn off the page file. As a result, virtual memory usage will be limited, and your disk performance may improve.
Method 9: Execute the check disk command
You can determine whether your hard drive is physically damaged using a check disk. If your disk usage is high, it usually indicates an application or logical problem, but confirming no physical damage is worth your time. Make sure your disk is checked.
Method 10: Change settings in Chrome and Skype
Making these changes to your Google Chrome and Skype settings has been reported to reduce disk usage by some users.
Options -> Show advanced options.
Under the Privacy section, you can uncheck the "Use a prediction service to speed up loading" option.
Google Chrome can also be disabled by disabling Flash.