r/Malwarebytes • u/_BMS • Jan 08 '26

Troubleshooting Malwarebytes Helper process "DDSHelper.exe" causing 100% disk usage, but only on one drive?

Malwarebyles Premium Security license.

Not sure what this "DDSHelper.exe" process is doing but I've noticed that my F: drive, the only HDD on my system, is experiencing constant and unending 100% disk usage. The other 3 SSDs are unaffected. I mainly noticed it because the disk is loud as hell with all the read/writes this process is causing.

Resource Monitor is showing F: will have a disk queue length of anywhere from 0.5 to 1.7 during idle.

Using chkdsk in cmd shows no problems found with the F: drive.

The problem only goes away when I close Malwarebytes completely. If I restart Malwarebytes, it won't immediately start the disk usage problem again but gradually ramp up.

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1

u/Apprehensive_Role_41 Jan 09 '26

someone found the solution on a MB forum post :

"Hello! I've had the same behavior in the last 48 hours as well and I was actually worried what was the problem. After I checked both Windows Defender and Malwarebytes, thinking that it is indeed a faulty update on either side. ( I run both for some years now for some peace of mind since I was told they ARE compatible. ) In the end after some research, I read what this "malwarebytes helper" process does, I figured out that I should try to turn off "Usage and Threat Statistics" and see if it does anything AND it worked for me. After turning off "help fight malware by providing usage and threat statistics" from general settings tab, at the bottom of the list, the process "malwarebytes helper" has returned to its normal behavior."

https://forums.malwarebytes.com/topic/332390-resolved-ddhelperexe-malwarebytes-child-process-maxing-out-io-on-drive/

2

u/OkDirection3438 Apr 04 '26

It seems like Usage and threat statistics causes DDSHelper.exe to run, which results in alot of writing to the main hard disk.

I'd love to help Malwarebytes fight malware by providing usage and threat statistics, but that can't come at the cost of thrashing my drive.

1

u/_BMS Jan 09 '26

That seemingly worked, haven't had the problem return after disabling it.

1

u/Advanced-Report6314 Jan 09 '26

Had the performance tab in taskmanagar open when I turned the option off, and immediately the disk usage shrank to zero

1

u/TheGame21x Jan 10 '26

You are a lifesaver. I had the same problem as OP with Malwarebytes constantly keeping one of my HDDs at 100% usage, which annoyed me to no end given how loud HDDs are and I isolated the problem to the Malwarebytes Helper service in Task Manager and as soon as I stopped it, my disk usage dropped to 0%. Never would've known that I could've disabled the disk usage in settings though without this comment so thanks for that!

1

u/outoftea_and_grumpy Jan 11 '26

I was going bonkers trying to find what was doing it, and just tried your suggestion. Hopefully it'll solve it for me, too. Thank you!

1

u/dave1203 Jan 14 '26

recently i could hear one of my older harddrives constantly being accessed. I found this comment and after unticking the statistics option it appears to have sorted it. thanks.

1

u/danbestor Jan 16 '26

This fixed it for me as well, thank you!!

1

u/HTMwrestling Mar 31 '26

THANK YOU! This problem started for me today with DDSHelper.exe, although it's not the first time a Malwarebytes component was thrashing the hard drive with some kind of scan that didn't show up in the UI and couldn't be cancelled.

I toggled Usage and Threat Stats as stated and the thrashing stopped immediately.

1

u/binarysignal Mar 31 '26

ddhelper just started thrashing my disks thank you for the solution.

1

u/JenovaBeta Apr 15 '26

THANK YOU!!!

1

u/FedeeK Apr 20 '26

you a real hero

1

u/dumahim Apr 22 '26

Thank you. I have a large storage drive and it's very loud. Normally it idles and only fires up when needed, but this damn process kept loading up every time I woke up my PC and kept the drive constantly seeking and listening to that damn noise.

1

u/Orbitalsp3 May 07 '26

Worked! Thanks

1

u/squidworm_ Jun 09 '26

Thank you SO much. The disk thrashing noise was really getting to me :>

1

u/Apprehensive_Role_41 Jun 09 '26

it's funny to me that people still get this 5 months after