<page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/"
      type="topic" style="task"
      id="disk-benchmark">

  <info>
    <link type="guide" xref="disk"/>

    <revision pkgversion="3.6.2" date="2012-11-12" status="outdated"/>

    <credit type="author">
      <name>GNOME Documentation Project</name>
      <email>gnome-doc-list@gnome.org</email>
    </credit>
    <credit type="author">
      <name>Natalia Ruz Leiva</name>
      <email>nruz@alumnos.inf.utfsm.cl</email>
    </credit>
   <credit type="editor">
     <name>Michael Hill</name>
     <email>mdhillca@gmail.com</email>
   </credit>

    <desc>Run benchmarks on your hard disk to check how fast it is.</desc>
    <include href="legal.xml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"/>
  </info>

<title>Test the performance of your hard disk</title>

  <p>To test the speed of your hard disk:</p>

<steps>

 <item>
  <p>Open the <app>Disks</app> application from the activities
  overview.</p>
 </item>
 <item>
  <p>Choose the hard disk from the <gui>Disk Drives</gui> list.</p>
 </item>
 <item>
  <p>Click the more actions button next to the <gui>-</gui> button and choose <gui>Benchmark Volume</gui>.</p>
 </item>
 <item>
  <p>Click <gui>Start Benchmark</gui>.</p>
 </item>
 <item>
  <p>Click <gui>Start Benchmarking</gui> to test how fast data can be
  read from the disk. If the <gui>Also perform write-benchmark</gui> option is checked, the benchmark will test how fast
  data can be read from and written to the disk.  This will take
  longer to complete.</p>
 </item>

</steps>

  <p>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.</p>

  <p>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.</p>

</page>
