Configure a Disk I/O Check

Monitor disk utilization and detect I/O bottlenecks

Written By Erdinc Akay

Last updated 26 days ago

Add Check dialog with the Disk I/O editor showing Display Name, Sampling duration, Exclude disks, and Warning/Critical utilization thresholds

A Disk I/O Check measures how heavily your storage devices are utilized. High disk I/O utilization causes slow application response times and can indicate that a device needs faster storage or a workload redistribution.

Prerequisites

  • You need the Monitoring Check Management permission.
  • The target device must have a connected agent.

Steps

  1. Go to Devices and open the device.
  2. Click the Checks tab → Add Check → Disk I/O.
  3. Configure the thresholds:
FieldRecommended valueDescription
Warning utilization (%)80%Warning when disk I/O utilization exceeds this value
Critical utilization (%)95%Critical when utilization exceeds this value
  1. Optional: Exclude specific disks that are expected to have high I/O load (e.g. dedicated database volumes).
  2. Click Add Check.

What the check reports

The check captures disk activity over a short interval (default: 2 seconds) and reports I/O utilization as a percentage and throughput for each monitored disk.

Tips

  • High I/O utilization on an SSD is less concerning than on a traditional hard drive — SSDs handle parallel I/O operations significantly better. Adjust thresholds accordingly.
  • Exclude backup volumes that are regularly saturated during backup windows to avoid false positives.

After the first check interval, the result appears in the device's Checks tab.

See also: Disk I/O Check Reference