Identify specific processes or worlds generating high I/O via esxtop

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

How to identify specific processes or worlds (e.g. VM worlds) which are generating high I/O on a particular storage device.  

 

This is useful where a particular device is generating unexpectedly high I/O.

Resolution

While high or unexpected I/O is observed on a device on an ESXi host, run:

 

esxtop

 

Type u, to select the devices view.

 

Type e, and paste the device id at the prompt Device to expand/rollup (device):

  

 

 

Metrics are displayed per world for the device:

 

The world IDs can be correlated with VM worlds by correlating with the output of:

esxcli vm process list

 

Non-VM worlds can be identified, for example, by correlating them with the output of:

ps -c -P -J -s -t 

esxcli storage core device world list -d <device naa id>

 

 

 

Additional Information

In the esxtop adapter view (type d) , I/O metrics can be viewed on a per path basis in similar manner:

Type  e, and paste an adapter name at the prompt.