Too high disk activity

[M. A.1]

While I'm using my computer normally without touching anything Dropbox related, the Dropbox process (I have a system monitor installed that shows disk usage and which process is using it the most among other things) randomly and strangely frequently uses large amounts of my HDD's processing capacity to a point where it causes stuttering in video playback, video games, and other applications that have higher priority for my computer use. This was also verified by simply shutting down Dropbox, since the problem goes away with that.

Since I'm the only user of this account as well, I'm the only one causing changes to it, so there's no new files being received or files being modified which are pushed to me to cause any of this either.

Also, I don't have an anti-virus installed that performs real-time scanning on reads/writes to interfere with this.

I presume this is Dropbox scanning the folders for changes, but I don't think it should cause this much disk activity or at least not such huge spikes for it. And I'm fairly sure the OS has file system notification API (change notifications, like Linux has inotify) that would remove the need to scan the file system for changes in such old fashioned and resource intense manner.

[CLockeWork]

Yet another person with this issue here! Only 2 years after OP!

[elpresidente17]

And another one here

[Zed]

Hello everyone,

I wanted to follow up on this issue you're experiencing. Let's check some things together:

1) First please review this article on possible reasons that could affect the performance of Dropbox on your device.

Some of the reasons this may be happening is incorrect file permissions or symlinks in your Dropbox.

2) Make sure you have configured your Antivirus/Firewall software to allow Dropbox to run.

3) Make sure you are not running a Beta version of the Dropbox app :

1. Log in to www.Dropbox.com using your web browser.
2. Click on your name at the top right corner of the page.
3. Click on "Settings".
4. From the "Profile" tab, scroll down to the section titled "Preferences" and uncheck the box next to "Include me in early releases" if it is checked.
5. Then download the latest stable version of the Dropbox desktop application. Once you install the stable build, it might take some time to re-index the files and sync any pending changes.

4) If none of the above won't fix this and the issue persists, please reach out to our support team so they can investigate and help.

Thank you.

[olivierva]

I'm running Windows 10 and my Dropbox is located on my E drive (E:\Dropbox). I also notice high disk activity. However when I look in Resource Monitor I noticed that the high activity generated by Dropbox.exe is on the C drive (not E).  

[Sanchez]

Hey @olivierva, welcome to our forum! 

Although you have your Dropbox folder on your E: drive, the application is still installed on your C: drive, so that’s why you’re seeing the activity there. I hope this clears things up  

As for the larger issue at hand, give @Zed's post above a read, and if you continue to have the issue, please reach out to our support team for further troubleshooting. 

Thanks! 

[Levi]

In my case this is only an issue on startup, dropbox uses 100% disk usage for ages.

I have a large set of many small files which rarely change, but every time dropbox starts it needs to check whether any files have changed. As an aside, I'm using smart sync so most of the files are 0b. So even with an SSD things slow down, it's not the amount of data being read it's the number of reads.

Anyhow my workaround is to delay running dropbox after startup. At least this way I've got a chance to open whatever programs I need before dropbox spools up. Once programs are open I don't need the disk so much. You can find third party apps to delay startup but you don't need that. In the dropbox app, I disabled "run on startup", and then created a task (task manager) to run dropbox 30 minutes after log on. 

[fragglecat]

How did you find it was an "unreadable" file causing the problem?

[Murat I.]

I need my disk at all times unfortunately. It is just not good enough. My final solution was to get rid and buy Office 365 which comes with free 1TB space. Never an issue... Although it is a bit slower to upload/download, it is much more reliable. I also don't get any unknowingly deleted flies. . Sorry dropbox but you lost a loyal customer.

[FiScher]

I had to stop dropbox and switch to google drive... 100% Disk usage for no apparent reason and freezing my laptop. 

The post above didn't help a bit.

[motionmind]

I don't know if this has been solved elsewhere, but I finally found a partial solution for the constant hangs I was getting while Dropbox pegged my hard drive usage at 100%. Hopefully this will fix the issue for everyone else or at least make the problem happen a lot less often as it did with me. I've included the original link and a summary/adaptation of the instructions below that.

how-to-fix-100-disk-usage-in-windows-10 

Open your task manager and find one of the Dropbox instances under the "Processes" tab. Right click it and select "properties." Select the "security" tab and, with the "ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES" selected, click the "edit" button. Check the box next to "Write" and apply.

I still have the occasional spike, but it happens a LOT less now. Hope this helps.