Skip to content

Settings

Open Settings from BeamDisk’s window (the gear), from the quick menu, or with ⌘,. It has four tabs; each disk also has a few settings of its own, on its page.

Setting What it does
Open at Login Starts BeamDisk when you log in, in the menu bar, so disks with Connect at login reconnect. Off until you turn it on. If macOS asks, approve BeamDisk in System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions.
When you quit Keep disks connected (recommended): disks stay available to Finder and Time Machine after you quit BeamDisk, like the iSCSI initiator services on Windows and Linux. Or Disconnect all disks.
Notify when a disk disconnects or reconnects On to begin with. See Messages and notifications. If notifications are off for BeamDisk in System Settings, the tab says so, with Open Notification Settings.
Performance history Kept for 7 days on this Mac.
Initiator name This Mac’s iSCSI name, with Copy and Change… buttons. A server that limits which initiators may connect needs this name in its list. Change it only if your server expects a particular name, and only while disconnected: see Deploy to a fleet.
Command-line tool The line to add to ~/.zshrc for the beamdisk command, with Copy Command. Part of BeamDisk Pro. See The command-line tool.

A preview at the top shows the item on a light and a dark menu bar.

Setting What it does
Show in menu bar Icon Only, Throughput (the default), IOPS, or Both.
Split read and write Stacks write above read. Turn off for a single total. On by default.
Units MB/s (the default), MiB/s or Gb/s, in the menu bar and throughout BeamDisk.
Show a badge when a disk is reconnecting Amber while a disk holds writes, red when apps see errors. On by default.

Click the item to open the window; right-click or Control-click it for the quick menu. See The menu bar and the quick menu.

These apply to every disk.

Setting What it does
Hold writes for When the server stops responding, apps wait this long for it to come back before they see errors, as on Windows. From 15 to 300 seconds in steps of 5; 60 by default. Applies at once. See When the server stops responding.
Reconnect Shown for reference, not a choice. After an outage, BeamDisk tries again every few seconds, never more than 10 seconds apart. A disk that couldn’t connect at all is tried again after 5, 10, 20 and 40 seconds, then every minute.
CRC32C digests Checksums on each command’s header and data, which catch corruption on the network at a small CPU cost. Off; When the target asks (the default); Preferred, whenever the target agrees; or Required. Applies when each disk next logs in to its server; Reconnect and Apply Now does it at once, pausing each disk for a moment. If a server refuses the new setting, the tab says so, and that disk keeps the previous one.
Memory for reads How much of this Mac’s memory BeamDisk may use for each disk to make reads faster: Off, 128 MiB, 256 MiB (the default), 512 MiB or 1024 MiB. Applies at once.

The status at the top reads Profile not installed, Waiting for your approval in System Settings since a time, or Configuration profile installed. Below it are the three steps to set up a backup disk, with Install Profile… and Open Time Machine Settings, and while BeamDisk waits for your approval, Finish in System Settings with Open Device Management. See Back up with Time Machine.

On the disk’s page, in the Disk card:

Setting What it does
Connect at login Connects and attaches the disk whenever BeamDisk opens, so at login too with Open at Login on. On by default for disks added with Add Disk; also in Add Disk and the disk’s Options menu. See Connect, eject and remove disks.
Power-loss protection Automatic (the default), On or Off. Applies the next time the disk connects. See Power-loss protection.
Spotlight Whether Spotlight searches the disk. Off unless you turn it on; always on for a Time Machine disk. Applies at once. See Spotlight on a disk.