Alternatives to GNOME Disks
A graphical disk utility for GNOME that partitions, formats, benchmarks and images drives on Linux. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
GNOME Disks
A graphical disk utility for GNOME that partitions, formats, benchmarks and images drives on Linux.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as GNOME Disks.
GParted
The partition editor for Linux, usually run from its own live USB so it can resize the disk it is not booted from.
GParted offers more advanced partition resizing, moving and checking across many filesystems, usually from a live USB, but lacks SMART display and benchmarks.
Disk Utility
Built-in macOS tool for creating disk images and managing volumes.
Disk Utility is the closed-source macOS built-in counterpart for managing volumes and disk images, not available on Linux.
KDE Partition Manager
A KDE application for creating, resizing, moving and backing up disk partitions on Linux.
KDE Partition Manager focuses on partitioning with more file system options and fits KDE, but lacks the SMART view, benchmark and image writing.
Also worth comparing
These listings name GNOME Disks as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
AS SSD Benchmark
Quick Windows benchmark tool for testing SSD read and write speeds.
GNOME Disks runs on Linux instead of Windows and includes a basic read and access-time benchmark inside a wider partitioning and formatting tool.
ATTO Disk Benchmark
A free benchmark from ATTO Technology for measuring storage read and write performance.
GNOME Disks is a free, open-source Linux disk utility with a built-in read and access-time benchmark, bundled with partitioning, formatting and SMART health data.
balenaEtcher
Writes an OS image to a USB stick or SD card, verifies every byte, and refuses to target your hard drive.
GNOME Disks can write USB images on Linux as part of a wider disk utility, without balenaEtcher's cross-platform support or Raspberry Pi USB boot flashing.
CrystalDiskInfo
Reads the health data your drives already record and tells you plainly whether one is dying.
GNOME Disks shows SMART health data on Linux inside a graphical tool that also partitions, formats and benchmarks drives, instead of Windows only.
CrystalDiskMark
The standard Windows disk benchmark, measuring sequential and random read and write speeds in a few clicks.
GNOME Disks moves the task to Linux, offering a built-in read and access-time benchmark as one part of a general graphical disk utility.
GNU Parted
A command-line program and library for creating, resizing and editing disk partition tables.
GNOME Disks provides graphical partitioning and formatting on Linux, with fewer advanced options but extra SMART and benchmark features.
GSmartControl
A graphical interface for smartctl that shows the health of hard drives and SSDs.
GNOME Disks shows SMART data inside a broader Linux disk utility, with less detail on attributes and self-tests.
Impression
A simple GNOME app for writing disk images to USB drives to make them bootable.
GNOME Disks can write USB images alongside partitioning, SMART and benchmarking, in a broader GNOME utility.
KDiskMark
A graphical disk benchmark for Linux that runs fio tests and shows easy-to-read results.
GNOME Disks includes a basic read and access-time benchmark within a broader Linux disk utility, with fewer test options.
Popsicle
A Linux utility from System76 that writes a disk image to several USB drives at once.
GNOME Disks can write a USB image as part of a wider Linux disk utility with partitioning and SMART data, one drive at a time.
Raspberry Pi Imager
The official tool for writing Raspberry Pi OS and other images to SD cards and USB drives.
GNOME Disks can write images to drives within a broader Linux disk utility that also partitions and formats.
Rufus
Writes a bootable USB drive from an ISO, and can strip the Windows 11 install requirements while doing it.
GNOME Disks is a Linux desktop utility that can write USB images alongside partitioning and formatting, without Rufus's Windows install customisations.
SD Memory Card Formatter
The SD Association's official utility for formatting SD, SDHC, SDXC and SDUC memory cards to specification.
GNOME Disks formats and partitions any drive, including SD cards, from a Linux desktop, but it is not described as following the SD File System Specification.
smartmontools
Reads the SMART health data built into disks and runs self-tests, giving advance warning before a drive fails.
GNOME Disks shows SMART data in a graphical Linux utility alongside partitioning and benchmarks, without scheduled monitoring like smartd.
UNetbootin
Writes Linux distribution ISOs to a USB drive on Windows, macOS and Linux.
GNOME Disks writes USB images from a Linux desktop alongside partitioning and formatting, but lacks UNetbootin's persistence file option.
Ventoy
Prepare a USB stick once, then boot any ISO by copying the file onto it.
GNOME Disks can write one USB image at a time from a Linux desktop, together with partitioning and formatting tools.
Win32 Disk Imager
A Windows tool for writing raw disk images to USB drives and SD cards, or backing them up.
GNOME Disks moves the job to Linux, combining image writing with partitioning, formatting, SMART health data and a basic benchmark in one window.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
nwipe
Erase block devices from a Linux terminal or text interface.
