Intel i3 iMac 2019 Sequoia 15.3.1 16Gb ram
Activity monitor shows Storagekitd has been running for a long time now using around 250% cpu which is at 77degrees C.
what is storagekitd doing and how do I stop it other than by shutting down?
iMac 21.5″
mvaug10087 wrote:
I am finding it difficult to discover what Storagekitd actually does. Could this be an indicator of problems with the external drive?
Potentially, but not necessarily.
storagekitd is a system daemon that’s part of Apple’s StorageKit framework, which underpins a lot of what Disk Utility, Finder, and other system-level services use for interacting with storage devices.
You'll sometimes see it consuming more CPU or memory when you're doing something storage-intensive — especially when managing external drives, working with Time Machine, or interacting with encrypted volumes ...
... so seeing spikes in CPU usage in not necessarily an issue and could just be caused by lengthy Time Machine backups. However, running at a high level for 38 hrs, would be unusual and needs further investigation. I second John Galt's suggestion to run an EtreCheck report.
If there are any external storage devices connected to that Mac, disconnect them and determine if storagekitd continues its behavior or not.
If there are no external storage devices connected to that Mac, EtreCheck is likely to provide some actionable information. If you should choose to post its report here, please follow these instructions with care: How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting Large Amounts of Text, i.e. an Etrecheck Report - Apple Community.
It could be. If that is your only Time Machine backup drive, consider adding at least one more to Time Machine, if for no other reason that one and only one backup device does not comprise a robust backup strategy.
In the meantime consider using Disk Utility's "repair" function on that drive: Repair a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support. Using Disk Utility may cause storagekitd to run away again, and / or Disk Utility may become unresponsive. That happens when a disk is operating in a state of failure, because Disk Utility doesn't know what else to do other than keep trying to read that disk. When that happens you can often reformat the disk and it will continue to work for a long time. Obviously you don't want to do that if it's your only backup drive.
It is completely normal and expected for a TM backup drive to become full or nearly so. 90% full is perfectly ok, but that factor alone will not cause storagekitd to occupy a significant amount of CPU time for so many hours. It tells me something is wrong with that disk. Not a problem, as long as you have another backup disk to fall back on.
Thanks again. I’ve been thinking a bit more about this. My wife is a graphic designer and she has been working on a particular image in Photoshop for a couple of days. I hadn’t realised but the image is about 1Gb and she has 4 copies plus a pdf which is about 500Mb. The Mac was struggling with editing these images and I guess the Time Machine backup might have been as well. Anyway I’ve ordered another external HDD and am thinking about getting a higher spaced Mac as well! Once I get the new HDD I’ll try out your other suggestions. Thanks again for your help.
Thanks for reply. Actually I force quit Storagekitd before I saw this and it seems OK now. I have a Toshiba 2Tb external HDD for Time Machine backups which is around 90% full and has been for a while. I am finding it difficult to discover what Storagekitd actually does. Could this be an indicator of problems with the external drive?
Thanks for your reply. I will be investigating.
Storagekitd using 250%cpu running for 38 hours!
