# Εγχειρίδιο του Εργαλείου δίσκων MateDisk

## Εισαγωγή.

Αυτός είναι ο οδηγός χρήστη του Εργαλείου δίσκων MateDisk.

### Παράθυρο του Εργαλείου δίσκων MateDisk

Shows Mate Disk Utility main window.

## Checking the hard disk.

Hard disks have a built-in health-check tool called SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology), which continually checks the disk for potential problems. SMART also warns you if the disk is about to fail, helping you avoid loss of important data.

Although SMART runs automatically, you can also check your disk's health by running the Drive Management application:

## Check your disk's health using the Disks application

1. Open the menu Applications Drive Management .

2. Select the disk you want to check from the Storage Devices List. Information and status of the disk will appear under Drive.

3. SMART Status should say »Disk is healthy«.

4. Click the SMART Data, button to view more drive information, or to run a self-test.

## What if the disk isn't healthy?

Even if the SMART Status indicates that the disk isn't healthy, there may be no cause for alarm. However, it's better to be prepared with a backup to prevent data loss.

If the status says »Pre-fail« , the disk is still reasonably healthy but signs of wear have been detected which mean it might fail in the near future. If your hard disk (or computer) is a few years old, you are likely to see this message on at least some of the health checks. You should backup your important files regularly and check the disk status periodically to see if it gets worse.

If it gets worse, you may wish to take the computer/hard disk to a professional for further diagnosis or repair.

## Wipe everything off a removable disk

If you have a removable disk, like a USB memory stick or an external hard disk, you may sometimes wish to completely remove all of its files and folders. You can do this by formatting. the disk - this deletes all of the files on the disk and leaves it empty.

## Format a removable disk

1. Open the menu Applications Drive Management .

2. Select the disk you want to wipe from the Storage Devices list.

   Make sure that you have selected the correct disk! If you choose the wrong disk, all of the files on the other disk will be deleted!

3. In the Volumes section, click Unmount Volume. Then click Format Volume.

4. In the window that pops up, choose a filesystem Type for the disk.

   If you use the disk on Windows and Mac OS computers in addition to Linux computers, choose FAT. If you only use it on Windows, NTFS may be a better option. A brief description of the file system type will be presented as a label.

5. Give the disk a name and click Format, to begin wiping the disk.

6. Once the formatting has finished, safely remove the disk. It should now be blank and ready to use again.

### Formatting a disk does not securely delete your files

Formatting a disk is not a completely secure way of wiping all of its data. A formatted disk will not appear to have files on it, but it is possible that special recovery software could retrieve the files. If you need to securely delete the files, you will need to use a command-line utility, such as shred.

## Manage volumes and partitions

The word volume is used to describe a storage device, like a hard disk. It can also refer to a part of the storage on that device, because you can split the storage up into chunks. The computer makes this storage accessible via your file system in a process referred to as mounting . Mounted volumes may be hard drives, USB drives, DVD-RWs, SD cards, and other media. If a volume is currently mounted, you can read (and possibly write) files on it.

Often, a mounted volume is called a partition, though they are not necessarily the same thing. A “partition” refers to a physical area of storage on a single disk drive. Once a partition has been mounted, it can be referred to as a volume because you can access the files on it. You can think of volumes as the labeled, accessible “storefronts” to the functional “back rooms” of partitions and drives.

### View and manage volumes and partitions using the disk utility

You can check and modify your computer's storage volumes with the disk utility.

1. Open the menu Applications Drive Management .

2. In the pane marked Storage Devices, you will find hard disks, CD/DVD drives, and other physical devices. Click the device you want to inspect.

3. In the right pane, the area labeled Volumes provides a visual breakdown of the volumes and partitions present on the selected device. It also contains a variety of tools used to manage these volumes.

   Be careful: it is possible to completely erase the data on your disk with these utilities.

Your computer most likely has at least one primary partition and a single swap partition. The swap partition is used by the operating system for memory management, and is rarely mounted. The primary partition contains your operating system, applications, settings, and personal files. These files can also be distributed among multiple partitions for security or convenience.

One primary partition must contain information that your computer uses to start up, or boot. For this reason it is sometimes called a boot partition, or boot volume. To determine if a volume is bootable, look at its Partition Flags in the disk utility. External media such as USB drives and CDs may also contain a bootable volume.

## Test the performance of your hard disk

To test the speed of your hard disk:

1. Open the menu Applications Drive Management .

2. Choose the hard disk from the Disk Drives list.

3. Klicken Sie auf das Zahnradsymbol und wählen Sie Laufwerks-Leistungstest.

4. Click Start Benchmark and adjust the Transfer Rate and Access Time parameters as desired.

5. Click Start Benchmarking to test how fast data can be read from the disk. Administrative privileges may be required. Enter your password, or the password for the requested administrator account.

   If Also perform write-benchmark is checked, the benchmark will test how fast data can be read from and written to the disk. This will take longer to complete.

When the test is finished, the results will appear on the graph. The green points and connecting lines indicate the samples taken; these correspond to the right axis, showing access time, plotted against the bottom axis, representing percentage time elapsed during the benchmark. The blue line represents read rates, while the red line represents write rates; these are shown as access data rates on the left axis, plotted against percentage of the disk traveled, from the outside to the spindle, along the bottom axis.

Below the graph, values are displayed for minimum, maximum and average read and write rates, average access time and time elapsed since the last benchmark test.