# Settings

> Every BeamDisk setting: the General, Menu Bar, Connection and Time Machine tabs, and each disk's own settings (Connect at login, Power-loss protection, Spotlight), with their defaults and when they apply.

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.

## General

| 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](https://beamdisk.app/docs/using/messages/). 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](https://beamdisk.app/docs/deployment/fleet/#initiator-names). |
| **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](https://beamdisk.app/docs/reference/command-line/). |

## Menu Bar

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](https://beamdisk.app/docs/using/menu-bar/).

## Connection

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](https://beamdisk.app/docs/disks/outages/). |
| **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. |

## Time Machine

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](https://beamdisk.app/docs/time-machine/set-up/).

## Each disk's settings

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](https://beamdisk.app/docs/disks/connect-and-eject/). |
| **Power-loss protection** | **Automatic** (the default), **On** or **Off**. Applies the next time the disk connects. See [Power-loss protection](https://beamdisk.app/docs/disks/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](https://beamdisk.app/docs/disks/spotlight/). |