"Merlin Moncure" <mmoncure(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> there are a few things that I can think of that can can cause postgres
> to cause i/o on a drive other than the data drive:
> * logging (eliminate this by moving logs temporarily)
> * swapping (swap is high and changing, other ways)
> * dumps, copy statement (check cron)
> * procedures, especially the external ones (perl, etc) that write to disk
> my seat-of-the-pants guess is that you are looking at swap.
vmstat would confirm or disprove that particular guess, since it tracks
swap I/O separately.
regards, tom lane