IOSTAT(8) System Manager's Manual IOSTAT(8)
NAME
iostat – report I/O statistics
SYNOPSIS
iostat [-CUdKIoT?] [-c count] [-n devs] [-w wait] [drives]
DESCRIPTION
The iostat utility displays kernel I/O statistics on terminal, device and
cpu operations. The first statistics that are printed are averaged over
the system uptime. To get information about the current activity, a
suitable wait time should be specified, so that the subsequent sets of
printed statistics will be averaged over that time.
The options are as follows:
-? Display a usage statement and exit.
-c Repeat the display count times. If no wait interval is specified,
the default is 1 second.
-C Display CPU statistics. This is on by default, unless -d is
specified.
-d Display only device statistics. If this flag is turned on, only
device statistics will be displayed, unless -C or -U or -T is also
specified to enable the display of CPU, load average or TTY
statistics.
-I Display total statistics for a given time period, rather than
average statistics for each second during that time period.
-K In the blocks transferred display (-o), display block count in
kilobytes rather then the device native block size.
-n Display up to devs number of devices. The iostat utility will
display fewer devices if there are not devs devices present.
-o Display old-style iostat device statistics. Sectors per second,
transfers per second, and milliseconds per seek are displayed. If
-I is specified, total blocks/sectors, total transfers, and
milliseconds per seek are displayed.
-T Display TTY statistics. This is on by default, unless -d is
specified.
-U Display system load averages. This is on by default, unless -d is
specified.
-w Pause wait seconds between each display. If no repeat count is
specified, the default is infinity.
The iostat utility displays its information in the following format:
tty
tin characters read from terminals
tout characters written to terminals
devices
Device operations. The header of the field is the device name and
unit number. The iostat utility will display as many devices as
will fit in a standard 80 column screen, or the maximum number of
devices in the system, whichever is smaller. If -n is specified on
the command line, iostat will display the smaller of the requested
number of devices, and the maximum number of devices in the system.
To force iostat to display specific drives, their names may be
supplied on the command line. The iostat utility will not display
more devices than will fit in an 80 column screen, unless the -n
argument is given on the command line to specify a maximum number
of devices to display, or the list of specified devices exceeds 80
columns. If fewer devices are specified on the command line than
will fit in an 80 column screen, iostat will show only the
specified devices.
The standard iostat device display shows the following statistics:
KB/t kilobytes per transfer
tps transfers per second
MB/s megabytes per second
The standard iostat device display, with the -I flag specified,
shows the following statistics:
KB/t kilobytes per transfer
xfrs total number of transfers
MB total number of megabytes transferred
The old-style iostat display (using -o) shows the following
statistics:
sps sectors transferred per second
tps transfers per second
msps average milliseconds per transaction
The old-style iostat display, with the -I flag specified, shows the
following statistics:
blk total blocks/sectors transferred
xfr total transfers
msps average milliseconds per transaction
cpu
us % of cpu time in user mode
sy % of cpu time in system mode
id % of cpu time in idle mode
EXAMPLES
iostat -w 1 disk0 disk2
Display statistics for the first and third disk devices device every
second ad infinitum.
iostat -c 2
Display the statistics for the first four devices in the system twice,
with a one second display interval.
iostat -Iw 3
Display total statistics every three seconds ad infinitum.
iostat -odICTw 2 -c 9
Display total statistics using the old-style output format 9 times, with
a two second interval between each measurement/display. The -d flag
generally disables the TTY and CPU displays, but since the -T and -C
flags are given, the TTY and CPU displays will be displayed.
SEE ALSO
netstat(1), nfsstat(1), ps(1), top(1), vm_stat(1)
The sections starting with ``Interpreting system activity'' in Installing
and Operating 4.3BSD.
HISTORY
This version of iostat first appeared in FreeBSD 3.0.
macOS 15.2 May 22, 2015 macOS 15.2