What Does I/O Spikes Mean?

I/O spikes are extreme changes in network demands that can cause certain impacts on distributed computing systems. This general term can be used to describe the different kinds of network or system impacts that may be problematic for planners and IT professionals.

Techopedia Explains I/O Spikes

One of the common scenarios where I/O spikes are a problem is in a network or system with a storage area network. Here, stored data are distributed across a range of containers and are available to multiple servers. What happens with this and other kinds of distributed networks is that high demands on data require a lot of server activity, and if a lot of this activity happens at once, it produces I/O spikes.