Vmstat

vmstat is a command that allows you to watch what your computer is doing, e.g. how many blocks are read in a specified timeframe.

To watch what has happened in 10 second-intervalls, issue:

$ vmstat 10
procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- -----cpu------
 r  b   swpd   free   buff  cache   si   so    bi    bo   in   [wikipedia:cs] us sy id wa st
 1  0    304 2211340 534660 453608    0    0     2     1    1    0  2  0 97  1  0
 0  0    304 2211356 534660 453608    0    0     0     5  343 1393  0  0 100  0  0
 0  0    304 2211388 534660 453608    0    0     0     0  321 1248  0  0 100  0  0
 0  0    304 2211380 534660 453608    0    0     0     4  361 1447  0  0 100  0  0

See also

• The vmstat man page