gnome-disks

gnome-disks [OPTIONS...]

-h, --help
    Displays a brief help message with available command-line options.

--help-all
    Shows all available help options, including GTK-specific ones.

--help-gtk
    Displays help specifically for GTK (Graphical Toolkit) options.

--display=DISPLAY
    Specifies the X display to use for the graphical interface.

--block-device=BLOCK_DEVICE_PATH
    Opens the graphical interface and navigates directly to the specified block device (e.g., /dev/sda or /dev/nvme0n1).

--version
    Prints the version information of the `gnome-disks` utility.

--restore-and-exit
    Internal option used to restore a backup and then exit. This typically requires root privileges and is not for general user interaction.

`gnome-disks` (also known as Disks) is the default disk utility for the GNOME desktop environment. It provides a user-friendly graphical interface for managing storage devices, including hard drives, SSDs, and removable media. Users can perform various operations such as creating, deleting, and resizing partitions; formatting disks with different file systems (e.g., ext4, NTFS, FAT32); and checking disk health using SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) data.

The utility also allows for mounting and unmounting file systems, creating and restoring disk images, and performing read/write benchmarks to assess disk performance. While `gnome-disks` offers powerful capabilities, operations like partitioning and formatting require administrative privileges and should be exercised with caution to prevent data loss. It simplifies complex disk management tasks that would otherwise require using multiple command-line tools.

`gnome-disks` is primarily a graphical application; its command-line usage is limited to basic invocations and specifying a target device.
Operations involving disk partitioning, formatting, or filesystem creation can lead to irrevocable data loss if not performed carefully. Always back up critical data before making changes to disk layouts.
Many powerful features require administrative (root) privileges.

`gnome-disks` provides a user-friendly graphical interface, making complex disk management tasks accessible to users without extensive command-line knowledge. Its visual representation of disk layouts simplifies partitioning and formatting operations.

The utility integrates SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) capabilities, allowing users to monitor the health and reliability status of their hard drives and SSDs, detecting potential issues before data loss occurs.

Users can perform read and write benchmarks on their storage devices directly within `gnome-disks` to measure performance, helping to diagnose slow drives or compare different storage solutions.

`gnome-disks` offers features to create exact disk images (backups) of partitions or entire drives and restore them, providing a convenient way to clone disks or recover systems.

`gnome-disks` is the successor to Palimpsest, which was also known as `gnome-disk-utility`. It has been a core part of the GNOME desktop environment's system tools, continuously developed to provide an intuitive and powerful graphical interface for managing storage devices, evolving with the GNOME project's design principles.

fdisk(8), parted(8), mkfs(8), mount(8), lsblk(8), smartctl(8), gparted(8)