top-like I/O monitor for Disks and I/O devices.^[1]

Activities

• Execute iotop and review disk activity in your computer
• Measure your hard disk read performance using hdparm command.^[2]

sudo hdparm -t /dev/sdc9
/dev/sda2:
 Timing buffered disk reads: 1498 MB in  3.00 seconds = 499.29 MB/sec

• Review IO and filesystems benchmark tools such us fio https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1198691/testing-io-performance-in-linux

See also

• hdparm
• HDD
• fio flexible io tester
• nice and ionice
• nmon
• sar -d
• iostat and iostat -x

1. ↑ http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/iotop.8.html
2. ↑ https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/108838/how-can-i-benchmark-my-hdd