# A quick tour

> Where BeamDisk shows your disks: the menu-bar item and its quick menu, the window's Overview, each disk's page, and Settings, in two minutes.

BeamDisk lives in the menu bar. Click it to open the window; right-click (or Control-click) it for the quick menu. A Dock icon appears only while a window is open.

## The menu bar

The item shows BeamDisk's glyph and, by default, live throughput: writes (↑) above reads (↓), in MB/s. An amber dot means a disk is reconnecting and BeamDisk is holding its writes; red means a disk needs you. The quick menu lists every disk with its live numbers, and has **Add Disk…**, **Connect All**, **Disconnect All**, **Settings…** and the ways to quit. [The menu bar and the quick menu](https://beamdisk.app/docs/using/menu-bar/)

## The window

The sidebar lists each server, by the name you gave it or its address, with its disks under it; click a server for [its page](https://beamdisk.app/docs/using/servers/). The **Overview** puts the disks that need you first, then four tiles (**Throughput**, **IOPS**, **Latency** and **Disks**), throughput and IOPS charts for the last 5 minutes, hour, day or week, and a table of every disk. At the bottom of the sidebar are BeamDisk's latest message, with how long ago it was, and **This Mac**, your initiator name. [The window and the Overview](https://beamdisk.app/docs/using/overview/)

## A disk's page

Click a disk for its live numbers (throughput, IOPS, p50 and p99 latency, errors and flushes), its history, how its latency is spread, its connection, and its settings: **Connect at login**, **Power-loss protection** and **Spotlight**. Its toolbar has **Show in Finder**, **Eject** or **Attach**, and an Options menu with **Remount**, **Reclaim Free Space**, **Test Speed…**, **Erase and Reformat…** and **Remove…**: see [A disk's page](https://beamdisk.app/docs/using/disk-page/).

## Settings

Four tabs: **General** (login, quitting, notifications, this Mac's initiator name), **Menu Bar** (the readout), **Connection** (how long writes are held, digests, memory for reads) and **Time Machine** (the one-time setup). [Settings](https://beamdisk.app/docs/reference/settings/)

## Times on everything

Every message and every problem says when it happened: **5 min ago**, **Since 9:12 PM · 25 min**. [Messages and notifications](https://beamdisk.app/docs/using/messages/)