Hard drive always running?

[Ashes]

Hi,
I just got a new Puget computer a few weeks ago. Everything has been fine, but I noticed my hard drive always seems to be running, even if I'm doing nothing on the machine. I can hear it grinding away and the light starts to blink. It's not blinking in a fixed pattern, just what I would consider normal for a hard drive that's in use.
This is my first Windows 7 machine, so I don't know if this is normal or not. The Task Manager says the CPU is at 1% and physical memory at 19%. I'm made sure any iTunes related software isn't running or any other software that uses a lot of the cpu or memory.
Is there anything I should be looking for? Thanks for any advice.!


-Ashes

[PCC-William]

Your CPU and RAM usage sound fine... so I suspect that is just normal disk activity. Windows does a lot of stuff in the background these days to help optimize performance: caching the programs you use most often, defragmenting the hard drive on a schedule, indexing your documents / files, etc.

What model of drive do you have? WD Black and Blue drives do make more noticeable noise while just running than the Green drives, but they are a good bit faster in exchange.

[Ashes]

Thanks for the info. I do have a WD black drive. I thought it might be something Windows 7 was doing, but I wasn't sure. I've only used linux and Windows xp for the last 10 years. So, I'm kind of out of the loop as to what's normal behavior for Windows.

[PCC-William]

I'd chalk it up to normal operation - but if it bothers you, or if it seems to do it more over time, certainly feel free to check with our support techs. I've been using a solid-state drive for a few years at home now, so I don't notice drive activity any more (since SSDs make no noise).