iotop
A Linux system monitoring tool that displays I/O (input/output) usage by process, showing which processes are reading from or writing to disk in real time.
iotop is a top-like utility that monitors disk I/O activity on a per-process basis. Unlike traditional tools like top that focus on CPU and memory, iotop specifically tracks which processes are performing read and write operations to storage devices.
The tool displays columns for process ID, user, disk read rate (KB/s), disk write rate (KB/s), and the total I/O percentage. This is invaluable for identifying processes causing high disk load, which can slow down system performance.
Example usage: running sudo iotop launches an interactive display where you can press a to toggle I/O accumulation mode or o to show only processes with I/O activity. It requires root privileges or CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability to function properly.