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Monitoring Storage Volumes

Introduction

System Monitor can monitor the current usage of storage space on disk volumes (file systems, partitions) currently connected to your computer. The total amount of storage space used by selected volumes is displayed in the menu bar in this case.

If you like to monitor used storage space of the system, perform the following steps:

1. Ensure the control window of System Monitor is open.
2. Select the item Information Sources > Volumes in the sidebar.
3. Make sure the check mark Monitor this item is set at the right side of the window.

Only those disk volumes will become part of the statistics which you have selected for monitoring (see below).

The data shown is calculated live and updated about once per minute. The disks will not be checked more often in order not to thwart transfers of actual user data. In addition, System Monitor respects your personal energy saver settings for hard drives. When the program has to assume that drives are currently in sleep mode, it will automatically avoid to retrieve usage data for volumes, in ordner not to wake up the drives. If you open this menu purposefully, however, all affected disks will be woken up in order to display up-to-date information.

Menu Bar

The box Menu Bar controls in which form storage space should be displayed. System Monitor offers a variety of icons and functions that you can combine in any order. The following elements can be used:

• The label VOL (volume) in small, vertical print to designate storage values and to separate them from other icons in the menu bar.
• The label VOL in large, horizontal print.
• The display of used (U) and free (F) storage space as plain text in two lines using small print.
• The display of used storage space as text in percent.
• The display of used storage space as bar chart.
• The display of used storage space as pie chart.

Within the box, the upper bar simulates as a sample how this monitor section should be presented in the menu bar. You can grab the individual items by mouse and move them into a different order. You can remove an element by pulling it out of the bar. The lower bar contains the stock of items available. If you like to add a certain item to the menu bar, use the mouse to drag it from the lower to the upper bar. Pressing the button Default causes your current settings to be deleted, replacing it by a default suggestion for the menu bar.

If you mistakenly have removed all items of this monitoring section from the menu bar, a three-star-icon (⁂, asterism) will appear as a placeholder. This ensures that you still can open the associated menu.

You cannot drag items directly into the real menu bar because Mac OS X does not allow this.

Menu Items

At least the following items will be shown for each selected volume as part of the menu associated with this monitor section:

• The name of the file system or, more exactly, its Macintosh volume name.
• The current value of used storage space in bytes.
• The current value of free storage space in bytes.
• A colored bar, indicating the degree of usage.

Selecting the volumes to monitor

The table Include the following volumes allows you to control which file systems should be monitored by the app and which shouldn't. Set a check mark next to each volume which should be monitored and remove the check marks for volumes where no monitoring should be performed. The selection can also be applied to all entries automatically, using the buttons All or None. The lines in the table can be dragged to a different sort order if desired. This order will then be used for the corresponding sections in the menu.

External and ejectable volumes will also appear in the table automatically. If you like to monitor a disk which is not always connected to your computer, this will be possible. Perform the following steps:

1. Ensure that the volume to monitor is connected to your computer.
2. Check the corresponding entry in the table.

If this volume is being unmounted later, it will be shown using gray print in the table and it will keep its position. The monitoring will automatically continue as soon as the volume becomes available again.

In order to make sure that neither you nor System Monitor confuse disk volumes, you should take care that all volumes used have different names.