Monitor Disk Read and Write Speeds in macOS 13

This guide provides a straightforward walkthrough on how to monitor real-time disk read and write speeds using the built-in Activity Monitor on macOS 13 Ventura. You will learn how to open the utility, access disk performance metrics, interpret real-time transfer speeds, and identify which background processes are consuming your drive's bandwidth.

Step 1: Open Activity Monitor

  1. Press Command + Space to open Spotlight Search.
  2. Type Activity Monitor and press Return.
  3. Alternatively, open Finder, navigate to Applications > Utilities, and double-click Activity Monitor.

Step 2: Navigate to the Disk Tab

Once Activity Monitor opens, click on the Disk tab located in the top menu bar alongside CPU, Memory, Energy, and Network.

Step 3: View Real-Time Read and Write Speeds

Look at the lower section of the window. At the bottom right, you will see real-time statistics regarding your drive's performance:

  • Data read/sec: Displays the real-time transfer speed at which data is currently being read from your drive (measured in KB/s, MB/s, or GB/s).
  • Data written/sec: Displays the real-time transfer speed at which data is currently being written to your drive.
  • Reads in/sec and Writes out/sec: Shows the input/output operations per second (IOPS) currently occurring on your storage system.
  • Data read and Data written: Displays the cumulative amount of data transferred since your Mac was last booted.

Step 4: Identify High-Usage Processes

In the main process list above the summary graph, you can see how individual applications and system tasks are interacting with your drive:

  • Click the Bytes Written column header to sort processes by the total amount of data written, placing the most demanding apps at the top.
  • Click the Bytes Read column header to see which processes have read the most data from your disk.

To force quit a process that is excessively reading or writing to your disk, select the process from the list and click the Stop (X) icon in the top toolbar, then select Quit or Force Quit.