When a person uses the Linux operating system they need to know how to manage a hard drive. A person may also need to manage USB drives and SD cards. It is important that they know how to manage a hard drive and the partitions to obtain maximum performance. Using Ubuntu’s Disk Utility tool, anybody can resize a partition, do reformatting of the hard disk and also check the health of their hard drives.

What is Ubuntu?

It is an open source application that can be used as an operating system in computers as well as in Smartphones. It is a more secure operating system when compared to Windows. Ubuntu has a great user interface, and the popularity of the Ubuntu operating system is increasing day by day. Ubuntu is a disk utility tool that makes it easier to manage a hard drive.

What is Ubuntu’s Disk Utility Tool?

Ubuntu is a Linux operating system. A disk utility tool is a tool in Ubuntu that is used to manage a hard drive and other media. The main uses are:

1. To manage formatting and partition.
2. To mount and unmount partitions.
3. To query SMART attributes.

To launch a disk utility tool, you have to open up the “Dash” by clicking on the Ubuntu logo. Then you have to type “Disks” and click on the “Disks.” It will show you the list of drives on the left side of the window that opens. The details about the drive are displayed at the top half. On the bottom half, it displays information about partition layout. You can use the partition layout view to add/remove partitions, to unmount partitions and to perform other tasks.

Different Types of Disk Actions to Manage a Hard Drive

Format Disk: Format Disk allows you to reformat your hard drive by creating a partition table. The old partitions that were present in the system will no longer be recognized. There are two different ways of doing formatting. They are quick format and slow format. A quick format means it will overwrite the partition table, but the data remains intact, where as a slow format it overrides all the data.

Create Image: You can manage a hard drive by creating images of your drive. Using the Ubuntu utility tool, you can easily restore the image.

Benchmark Disk: It is an action that is performed by the user to check how fast his drive is. It is usually done to check how fast the hard drive can read and write and also to check the access time.

Smart Data: Smart data is an option that a person can use when the hard drive starts to behave differently. He can perform different tests to see if there is an issue with the hard drive and if so, he can take the necessary action to manage a hard drive.

Partition Actions: People can add, remove and unmount partitions. Under edit partition option, they can choose the type of partition that is required. Using the option “Edit Filesystem,” a user can change the partition label or the name.

Edit Mount Option: Using the “Edit Mount” option, the user can choose to mount the file. It is done during a system boot up.

Conclusion

Using the above given steps it is easy for a user to manage a hard drive with the disk utility tool in Ubuntu.