>

System Statistics With sysstat

Sample disk, CPU and memory performance now or from history.

LinuxmonitoringperformancediskLow risk
Run iostat -x 1 5 to print extended disk statistics once per second, five times.

01Command

Command
$ iostat -x 1 5

02What it does

sysstat provides iostat for disks, sar for historical CPU/memory/network data, mpstat for per-CPU detail and pidstat for processes. When the collector service is enabled, sar can replay yesterday's performance from its binary logs.

03Risk

RiskLow risk
Requirementssudo apt install sysstat
!Warning: Historical collection writes to /var/log/sysstat and can grow; configure retention to control disk use.

04Undo

✓No undo needed — this command does not change persistent state.

05Sources

  • Debian package: sysstat
    Debian · vendor-doc · 2026-09-20
    Evidence: Debian packages sysstat, which provides sar, iostat, mpstat and related utilities.
  • sysstat
    Official project · vendor-doc · 2026-09-20
    Evidence: Debian packages sysstat, which provides sar, iostat, mpstat and related utilities.

Last verified: 2026-09-22 · Category: System & Settings

06Related solutions

Snapshot System Health with vmstat
Linuxvmstatmonitoringperformance

vmstat gives a compact one-line-per-interval view of CPU usage, swap activity, and I/O waits that top doesn't summarize as clearly.

Low risk ✓ 2026-09-17
Check RAM Usage with free -h
Linuxmonitoringmemoryfree

Use free -h to see used, free, and available memory plus swap in GB/MiB instead of raw kilobytes.

Low risk ✓ 2026-09-17
Free Space with apt autoremove and apt clean
Linuxdebiandiskapt

autoremove deletes no-longer-needed dependency packages, and clean wipes the downloaded .deb cache in /var/cache/apt/archives.

Medium risk ✓ 2026-09-17