Lots of IRP and FASTIO QUERY_INFORMATION activity

[insdr]

Hi, by looking at Sysinternals Process monitor I see a lot of IRP_MJ_QUERY_INFORMATION, IRP_MN_QUERY_INFORMATION and FASTIO_QUERY_INFORMATION (and IRP_MJ_DIRECTORY_CONTROL too) operations on my secondary HDD, mostly related to desktop.ini files in some different paths and a specific folder containing fonts in my Solidworks installation on that drive; programs related to these operations include consent.exe, control.exe, mmc.exe, explorer.exe, system, runtimebroker.exe, and some others; users related to these operations are both my user and NT AUTORITY/SYSTEM

This activity causes unwanted spin ups of this secondary drive, which should be woken only if I explicitly access it and stay spun down after the set spindown time. Automated, background activity should not wake this non-OS drive.

After reading some of the documentation on Microsoft Docs, it looks that this activity might be caused by the storage controller. The storage controller on my PC is an "Intel 300 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller", driver version 17.9.6.1019.

I may even be ok with this activity happening if it happens only when the HDD is already spinning because of my activity; the drive should not be woken for other reasons than my explicit activity.

Is it possible to control this kind of activity through the storage controller or something like that?

Thanks to anyone that will try to help

[BrusC_Intel]

Hello, insdr.

Good day,

Thank you for posting in the Intel Community Support forum.

I received your thread regarding this unknown activity on your HDD, I will be glad to assist you.

Are working with Intel® Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel® VROC) or Intel® Rapid Storage Technology in any way?

Unfortunately, we do not have information regarding the issue you described, but knowing that you are working with could help us point you in the right direction. I will follow up on May 27th just in case.

Best regards,

Bruce C.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[insdr]

Hi Bruce, thank you for replying. I have found that the activity related to the Solidworks fonts folder happened just because of those fonts being installed (hence, used) in Windows, so uninstalling them ended the activity. For the remaining stuff, I am now suspecting that it's consequence of MsMpEng.exe activity on that drive.

Since I hadn't found anything (until this morning), I had tried asking here to see if the storage controller could be the cause of my issue, but now it seems not to be the case; I'm sorry for not updating this thread in time.

I am not working with VROC nor RST in any way; my PC is configured just to use Intel AHCI (primary os SSD and secondary data HDD) with nothing else. Anyway, I'd still be interested in some way to make the controller wake up the secondary HDD only on user input (for example, opening a folder or a program on that drive) and to prevent other unwanted spin ups.

Thank you for your time

[BrusC_Intel · Accepted solution]

Hello, insdr.

Thank you for the update.

I have been trying to confirm if this is something we can help you with in a different community section, but with this being managed by the OS the best option is to contact Microsoft to confirm if this is possible or not, just keep in mind that it is very unlikely that it can be managed in any form.

The thread will stay open in case other users would like to participate or in case you would like to share your findings with the community, but it will not be monitored by Intel support.

If you require any type of assistance from Intel in the future, please open a new thread or contact us via any of the other support methods (remember to select you location):

- Contact Support: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/contact-support.html

Best regards,

Bruce C.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[insdr]

Ok, knowing that's all on the OS side is better than nothing anyway.

Thank you a lot for your help