Database Daemon and Disk Activity

[Rodrigo Izurieta]

Hi,
Upon wake-up from sleep or upon restart my computer (PB G4 Titanium running
OSX 10.3.6) starts on this lengthy and unexplained HD activity that seems
like periodic small readings from the HD. About 20 minutes later it goes
into a more intense disk access for about 15 seconds and then stops and
performs normally. This happens consistently every time I boot-up or wake-up
from sleep.

I confirmed this disk activity with the "Disk Activity" tab on Activity
Monitor.

I also tracked the processes working and found that when the computer goes
into those 15 seconds of intense disk activity that always follows the 20 or
so minutes of initial activity, the process Database Deamon is highlighted
in red on the processes list, with the word (hung) added, indicating that
this is very probably the culprit.

The parent process for Database Deamon is Windows Server. I do not know what
any of these do and have no idea how to stop this disk activity.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

 

[Chris Ridd]

Hi,
Upon wake-up from sleep or upon restart my computer (PB G4 Titanium running
OSX 10.3.6) starts on this lengthy and unexplained HD activity that seems
like periodic small readings from the HD. About 20 minutes later it goes
into a more intense disk access for about 15 seconds and then stops and
performs normally. This happens consistently every time I boot-up or wake-up
from sleep.

I confirmed this disk activity with the "Disk Activity" tab on Activity
Monitor.

I also tracked the processes working and found that when the computer goes
into those 15 seconds of intense disk activity that always follows the 20 or
so minutes of initial activity, the process Database Deamon is highlighted
in red on the processes list, with the word (hung) added, indicating that
this is very probably the culprit.

The parent process for Database Deamon is Windows Server. I do not know what
any of these do and have no idea how to stop this disk activity.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Your headers suggest you're using Entourage 2004 - the Database Daemon in
this version does some integrity checking of your databases in the
background. That may be the cause of your extra disk IO.

If you don't want it, restart Entourage while holding the Option key down,
choose "Set Database Preferences" and tell it not to run in the background.

I've been running E2004 this way since it was released with no problems. I
run an occasional integrity check "by hand", but they never find anything
wrong.

The answer to your other question is that Window Server is the part of OS X
that manages the display for a particular user. It is started when you log
in, and all your "Startup Items" like the MS Database Daemon are associated
with it. If you try to stop the Window Server, you'll probably log yourself
out ;-)

Cheers,

Chris