I just realised I posted the comment below on the old bug threat, so posting it here as well to be more contemporary!
ps auxw shows me the ionice'd process: root 6466 0.0 0.0 4328 356 ? S 07:35 0:00 flock --nonblock /run/mlocate.daily.lock /usr/bin/ionice -c3 /usr/bin/updatedb.mlocate but the problem process, blocking IO is: root 6467 1.0 0.0 5688 2220 ? D 07:35 1:25 /usr/bin/updatedb.mlocate It's this that eats nigh on 100% of IO. Is it a subprocess that's spawned and isn't ionice'd? -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1190696 Title: updatedb.mlocate uses 100% of the hdd IO. The OS is completely unusable. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mlocate/+bug/1190696/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
