It’s not often but use Windows long enough and there will be situations where you need to monitor the drive activity. i.e., check if the drive is in active use. For example, maybe you are troubleshooting specific issues on a drive, running malware detection, monitoring drive performance, installing/uninstalling big software, and want to make sure it’s writing to disk or running resource-intensive tasks such as backups, etc.
The good thing is, on Windows, you have two easy ways to check if the drive is in use. I will show both methods in simple and easy steps in this quick and easy tutorial with screenshots. Let’s get started.
Before You Begin
- The below steps are tested to work on Windows 11 and Windows 10.
Use Task Manager To Check if a Drive Is in Use
- Right-click on the taskbar.
- Select the “Task Manager” option.
- Go to the “Performance” tab.
- Select the drive in the middle panel.
- If the drive is in use, you will see changing “Read speed” & “Write speed“.
- If the drive is inactive, the “Read speed” & “Write speed” will be “0“.
Detailed Steps (With Screenshots)
First, we need to open the Task Manager. To do that, either press the “Ctrl” + ” Shift” + “Esc” shortcut or right-click on the empty space on the taskbar and select “Task Manager“.
Go to the “Performance” tab on the left sidebar of the Task Manager window.
Note: If you don’t see the tab names in the Task Manager, click the hamburger icon (three horizontal lines) on the left side of the title bar.
Now, select the drive you want to monitor in the middle panel. For example, I want to monitor my D drive for any disk activity. So, I selected it. At the bottom of the right panel, take a look at the “Read speed” and “Write speed” entries. If there is activity, these values will change constantly. You can also look at the “Activity time” & “Disk transfer rate” graphs at the top.
If there is no activity, the graphs will be empty, and the “Read speed” and “Write speed” display “0“.
That’s it. It is that simple to monitor drive activity using the Task Manager. If needed, you can close the Task Manager window.
Monitor Drive Activity Using Resource Monitor
If you are looking for an alternative method, you can use the Windows Resource Monitor tool to monitor the overall drive activity.
Keep in mind that this method shows the overall activity and not per-drive activity. So, if you have multiple disks and want to monitor a specific disk, you cannot do that. In that case, follow the first method. That being said, one of the biggest advantages of this method is that it shows a lot of information like the processes, which files are being read or written, total bytes read and written, I/O priority, etc.
- Press the Start button on your keyboard.
- Enter “Resource Monitor” in the Start menu’s search bar.
- Click the “Open” option.
- Navigate to the “Disks” tab at the top.
- Expand the “Disk Activity” section.
- You will see changing Disk I/O if the drives are active.
Detailed Steps (With Screenshots)
First, open the Resource Monitor application. To do that, press the Start button, enter “Resource Monitor” in the Start menu’s search bar, and click the “Open” option. Alternatively, press “Windows key + R”, enter “resmon”, and click “OK”.
Note: For those interested, here are more run commands to open Control Panel tools and built-in applications in Windows.
Go to the “Disks” tab in the Resource Monitor window. Here, click and expand the “Disk Activity” section.
If any drive is active, you will see the changing “Disk I/O” number on the “Disk Activity” title bar. Additionally, you will also see the processes and files that are being read and written.
As I said earlier, you cannot monitor a specific drive but only the overall disk activity along with process and file information.
Wrapping Up — Monitoring Drive Activity in Windows 11
Finding if a drive is active and in use is a simple task in Windows thanks to the Task Manager. If you want more granular information such as the Disk I/O, processes, files, read and write operations, etc., use the Resource Monitor tool. Keep in mind that the Resource Monitor tool only shows overall disk activity and not per-drive activity.
If you have any questions or need help, comment below. I’ll be happy to assist.
