AVIRA 2012 high disk i/o, is it bad for my HDD?

[22ndcitysaint]

I've been using AVIRA Premium 2012 (Realtime only, no ProActiv and Webguard) for 5 days now and the only thing that bothers me is that the i/o read bytes are too high even though I don't experience system slowdowns. At boot it's already at 1GB then after an hour it already reached 10GB! I read that this is caused by the ahead scanning feature of AVIRA. Is this bad for my hard drive? I use AVIRA because of it's excellent detection of 0-day malware and it's lightness but if it thrashes the hard drive too much, I might ditch this and try other AV's.

[clocks]

I wouldn't worry about it. My a cable DVR records two HD shows at once, while watching a third. If that doesn't destroy a hard drive, Avira certainly will not.

[The Hammer]

I agree with clocks but it would be interesting to view the dialog if you posted in Avira's user forum. Not trying to get rid of you or anything but the mods are very knowledgeable about the product and perhaps what your experiencing isn't the norm.

[m0unds]

if you're referring to the task manager i/o read bytes, that includes all i/o, not just disk i/o. since you're using proactiv i'd assume you're on xp, but if you happen to be on vista or win7, use resource monitor to see disk i/o. *EDIT* whoops - missed that you said "no" proactiv - reading comprehension fail! my bad. haha

like others said, no, avira's disk reads/writes aren't likely to break anything. i've got thousands of disks in archive arrays at work and they run at full duty cycle 24/7 and it takes years for them to fail. normal computer use won't likely cause issues with regard to mechanical failure. unless regular use includes throwing your computer down the stairs while it's powered on, of course

[King Grub]

I agree with the above.

10 GB in i/o reads done by Avira in an hour is not normal, though, at least not on a home computer. That's what I might get in 24 hours of heavy usage. I wonder what files it reads on your computer to rack up that amount in so short a time.

[Atul88]

My jqs.exe is using 2,112,017337 --does that mean 1.94 Gb
Should i be worried ??

[The Hammer]

Originally Posted by Atul88

My jqs.exe is using 2,112,017337 --does that mean 1.94 Gb
Should i be worried ??

Here's what I found regarding it. http://www.ghacks.net/2008/12/15/jqsexe/ But I would still wait for advise.

[Atul88]

Originally Posted by The Hammer

Here's what I found regarding it. http://www.ghacks.net/2008/12/15/jqsexe/ But I would still wait for advise.

Now that is some useful info. I terminated jqs.exe & i can see much improvement, Flash contents running smoothly in the browser like Zynga Poker!!!
Thanks for the Info The Hammer!!!

[The Hammer]

Originally Posted by Atul88

Now that is some useful info. I terminated jqs.exe & i can see much improvement, Flash contents running smoothly in the browser like Zynga Poker!!!
Thanks for the Info The Hammer!!!

I'm glad your happy.

[Emetic]

I've used Avira for a while and put it on other people's machines.
I didn't reinstall it on mine because:

1: My disk was going crazy and I felt my computer was being hijacked.
2: It would not auto-update after setting it to auto-update.
3: The nag-screen coming up.


Yeah I know you can switch the nag-screen off, and I did, and I understand the economics of giving your stuff away, but needing to sell some units to eke out a living. I can only speak for myself, and if a company shows good faith in me, I reciprocate in kind. Maybe others are coerced and that tactic works, but you are getting into scareware territory and that doesn't work with me. I used to think more of Avira, now they remind me more and more of McAfee.

I still put it on peoples machines and it works quite well on there. Very effective and light weight. I'll keep an eye on it and look forward to putting it back on my machine in a bit. For now I have installed Comodo Anti-Virus and am quite happy. Don't really rely too much on AV anymore anyway, but it's an extra layer.


If Avira can't be switched off (I use autoruns btw) and can't auto-update, I will wait until it can and use something else in the meantime, on my machine at least.