A system administrator notices that a Linux server is performing poorly and, upon investigation, discovers that the I/O wait time is consistently high, even under normal workload. The server hosts a database service that is critical for the company's operations. Which of the following actions should the administrator take FIRST to address the high I/O wait issue?
Check for network issues that may be affecting storage access
Upgrade to faster storage hardware, such as NVMe drives
Analyze disk I/O activity using utilities like iotop or iostat
Add additional RAM to the server to improve overall performance
The correct answer is 'Analyze disk I/O activity using utilities like iotop or iostat'. High I/O wait indicates that the CPU is spending significant time waiting for I/O operations to complete. Investigating disk I/O activity can help identify a potential bottleneck or excessive read/write operations that may be causing the high wait times. Upgrading the storage hardware may eventually be necessary, but initially, the administrator needs to pinpoint the problem. Adding RAM may reduce I/O by increasing the buffer cache, but it does not directly address I/O problems. Checking for network issues is unrelated to local I/O wait and does not help in this instance.
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What is I/O wait time in Linux?
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How do tools like iotop and iostat help analyze disk I/O?
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Why is upgrading hardware not the first step to address high I/O wait?