Frequent jbd2 activity on ext4 fs despite noatime in fstab

[dtralara]

My NSA325 NAS with a fresh arch install on a brand new hard drive sounds like it's constantly busy. How can I pinpoint the cause?
Every 15min, it looks like it would stop (writing and making noise) only to resume its excessive IO activity after less than a minute.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
# iotop -obtqqq | grep jbd2
17:11:01 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 8.18 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:11:07 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 3.45 M/s 0.00 % 6.57 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:11:13 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 4.80 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:11:18 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 5.07 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:11:22 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 5.22 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:11:28 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 10.26 K/s 0.00 % 17.06 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:11:34 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 3.49 K/s 0.00 % 5.20 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:11:39 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 16.70 K/s 0.00 % 4.81 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:11:45 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 4.88 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:11:49 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 0.30 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:11:51 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 6.44 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:11:56 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 3.41 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:12:01 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 5.07 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:12:07 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 5.40 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:12:12 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 3.41 M/s 0.00 % 6.49 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:12:16 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 3.10 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:12:22 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 3.40 K/s 0.00 % 5.07 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:12:26 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 6.69 K/s 0.00 % 5.79 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:12:32 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 4.89 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:12:36 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 4.99 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:12:41 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 2.50 M/s 0.00 % 0.47 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:12:42 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 4.97 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:12:47 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 5.36 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:12:52 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 3.29 K/s 0.00 % 4.91 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:12:57 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 5.01 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:13:03 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 5.09 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:13:05 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 3.40 K/s 0.00 % 7.84 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:13:10 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 3.41 K/s 0.00 % 5.08 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:13:16 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 1711.55 K/s 0.00 % 7.28 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:13:21 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 5.08 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:13:27 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 3.35 K/s 0.00 % 5.00 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:13:33 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 5.68 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:13:37 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 5.02 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:13:42 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 3.39 K/s 0.00 % 4.60 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:13:48 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 5.02 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:13:53 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 3.48 M/s 0.00 % 5.72 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:13:58 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 4.95 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:14:03 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 4.66 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:14:08 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 4.82 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:14:14 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 4.92 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
17:14:19 103 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 3.40 K/s 0.00 % 5.07 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
')

The 'noatime' option doesn't seem to have any effect
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
cat /etc/fstab
UUID=6ced6fce-c7b9-46c4-925d-bb86099c725e / ext4 rw,noatime 0 1
')

Is there anything weird/wrong in this mounting table? In particular are 'debugfs' and 'tracefs' supposed to appear here?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
# mount
/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,noatime,data=ordered)
devtmpfs on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,relatime,size=254564k,nr_inodes=63641,mode=755)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,size=101888k,nr_inodes=819200,mode=755)
tmpfs on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,noexec,size=4096k,nr_inodes=1024,mode=755)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,xattr,release_agent=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-cgroups-agent,name=systemd)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/memory type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,memory)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,blkio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls,net_prio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,net_cls,net_prio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,perf_event)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpu,cpuacct)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuset)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,freezer)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/devices type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,devices)
systemd-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs (rw,relatime,fd=29,pgrp=1,timeout=0,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tracefs on /sys/kernel/tracing type tracefs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,size=254716k,nr_inodes=409600)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /run/user/1001 type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=50940k,nr_inodes=12735,mode=700,uid=1001,gid=1001)
')



PS: I installed arch by simply extracting the rootfs archive to the disk, can it be the cause of the problem?

[karog]

Did you bother to google jdb2 to see that it is the journal block device? So that activity is journaling. Google jdb2 and you will find others have asked a similar question with advice on how to investigate further.

Try doing a bit of research before asking questions so you don't waste people's time answering the same question for the zillionth time.

[ronsmith]

Wow, I am really surprised why you are so pissed about question. Why it's such a big deal for you?