Windows 10 - Poor Performance and 100% Disk Usage

I have a 27" iMac Late 2015 running macOs Sierra and PD 12.0.2. My iMac has the 1TB fusion drive with the 24GB SSD. After fresh installing Windows 10, it ran fine. Started to slow down after updates were installed. Sometimes, the VM runs extremely fast, but most of the time my disk usage in Windows is pegged at 100%. I have checked my settings in PD and it seems to be fine. I'm not really sure what is causing my high disk usage, especially when Windows is just idling, not running any programs, and not installing updates. Also, when the disk usage is at 100%, I can hear my Mac hard drive ticking away and is loud. First Aid found no issues with my disk. What can I check?

 

I guess you have set the VM to run with expanding disk.
What other specs does the VM have?

 

Hmm, that is a new one. It is set to expanding disk, but I can't fathom why that would slow me down so much? I'm not really expanding that much and most of the time my disk usage is 100% when I am idling on the desktop doing nothing.

 

Hello DanielF1, please try this steps and check if that makes any changes.

 

Yes, I tried these steps in the past and it did not help. I am having high disk usage issues, not high CPU.

 

So, this KB may help you with the CPU usage. Please try and check .

 

Everything is setup correctly for my VM. Again, though, I am not having high CPU usage, I am having high disk usage.

 

Hello PaulChris!

Sorry for just jumping in here but you guys that are supposed to be Parallels tech support are not listening to what the customer is saying, he has NOT a problem with the CPU, he has NOT a problem with low on disk space, he has a problem where the disk is utilized 100% of the time without any reason that takes down the system performance. Why do I jump into this question, because I have exactly the same problem... The disk is 100% in activity without any real reason. What is going on? This problem has come up when I upgraded to Parallels 12.

 

Did you ever solve your issue? Mine is still prevalent...

 

Well, actually not! I found out that the reason for my disk utilization was because poor SD driver in the guest OS. It was not possible to install that kind of driver that best worked with my hardware as the drivers Windows 10 supported was to new for my hardware and vice verse. Eventually I found one SD driver that made things a bit better but after every parallels tool update, I needed to reinstall that driver. That just drove me crazy so I decided to get a new PowerBook with better hardware and a SSD big enough so I didn't need to use the SD expansion. Now everything rolls on as expected. So, check if you can change the chipset drivers to see if they cope better with you hardware.

 

Glad you fixed your issue! I think my issue is related to my iMac 5K's Fusion drive. It's a 1TB drive and I have the model with the measly 24GB SSD portion. I'm thinking when macOS shifts my VM from the SSD to HDD, it slows down. What's strange is that sometimes my VM is extremely fast, maybe for about 2-3 minutes, then it gets slow.

 

There is a common problem in W10, with high disk usage (not a Parallels problem). There are about five things that can cause this, but one is the drive optimisation that Windows does. I found that this in particular causes problems with the 'virtual' HD in Parallels, repeatedly seeing it as needing optimisation, and moving lots of data around pointlessly.
Have a look at:
<http://www.drivethelife.com/windows-10/how-to-fix-100-disk-usage-after-windows-10-upgrade.html>
Turning off Superfetch also helped my system a lot.

 

Thanks Roger. Do you also notice that your performance is very sporadic? Right now, I have my Windows 10 VM running and it is lightning fast. Visual Studio opens in 2 seconds and everything is running smooth. Guaranteed if I wait about 30 min, my disk usage will increase. I did disable Superfetch and it didn't seem to help that much. What I really need is a tool like Process Monitor to see exactly which process is causing the high disk usage.

 

UPDATE: I disabled the "Superfetch" and "Connected User Experiences and Telemetry" services and the issue seems to have gone away. My boots are much quicker and after booting, my system isn't pegged at 100% disk anymore. I do experience somewhat high disk usage upon booting, but that is because I linked my Microsoft account and it's doing all the syncing and OneDrive nonsense.

 

Cross fingers.

 

If your windows 10 PC is undergoing 100% disk usage, then disable search services by opening services in taskbar search , opening services manager and disable windows search service. You may also disable windows update service, but you have to enable it after few days, as disabling windows 10 update service is not recommended. Also disable superfetch and Background apps.
To disable background apps just go to settings - privacy - background apps and disable background apps.
Source: - http://merabheja.com/100-disk-usage-on-windows-10/

 

Hello

With Windows 10 and Parallels 14, I was having MAJOR issues with 100% disk usage from the Windows side. I did all the recommendations from above with NO LUCK.

I even purchase Disk booster from Auslogics and it helped some, but not really.

Then, out of a the blue, I tried something different. I disabled "Expanding Disk" and set my VM disk space size to be big enough for the Windows 10. I was using the "Expanding Disk" feature. This is in the Configure -> Hardware -> Hard Disk section.

Well, guess what. 100% FAST VM Windows 10. OMG, no more issues with 100% disk usage. Yes, Windows Search does cause 100% Disk usage, but NO EFFECT anymore. I don't know if it is a Windows 10 or Parallels issue, but making the disk size normal without expanding did the job.

So, I set all me VM with normal size disk space and turned off "Expanding Disk"

I wanted to share this encase someone else was having issues with slow response from 100% disk usage.

Thanks

 

As a separate comment, the 100% usage seems to have been fixed in the latest update from Parallels. I upgraded earlier this week, and the issue has not appeared since. Version 14.1.0 (45387).

 

@LesH Glad it's working out for you, but in my situation I have about 20 GB free on my disk at all times and I never even came close to using it all up.
@RogerH6 Were you also experiencing a sluggish OS right after boot? After waiting about 10 minutes, the VM becomes insanely fast but then eventually slows to a crawl and programs take forever to open. Also, this is when my disk is at 100%. Same signs as yours? If so, I'm hoping like you said this 14.1.0 version resolves it fully. I've been dealing with this issue since first build of Parallels 13.