Forum OpenACS Q&A: Response to linux disk activity info

Instead, run

"vmstat 5"

to get a continuously update list of real kernel statistics, updated every 5 seconds.  The man page tells you what each column means.  Look for the number of disk transactions, and paging activity.

vmstat -s (or -S, I forget which) will give you useful information on various stats of your system.  For disks, look at the cache numbers for file system lookups (this is usually at the bottom of the output).