The Eject() method

Eject (IN  a{sv} options);

Ejects media from the drive. This is only meaningful to do on drives with removable media.

There are not a lot of guarantees associated with this method so it should only be called in response to an user action.

On some hardware the media may be physically ejected while on other hardware may simply eject the disc. On some hardware it may not do anything physical but it may cause e.g. a display on the hardware to show e.g. “It is now safe to remove the device”.

The SetConfiguration() method

SetConfiguration (IN  a{sv} value,
                  IN  a{sv} options);

Sets the configuration for the drive. This will store the configuration in the file-system and also apply it to the drive.

See the "Configuration" property for details about valid values and the location of the configuration file that value will be written to.

The PowerOff() method

PowerOff (IN  a{sv} options);

Arranges for the drive to be safely removed and powered off. On the OS side this includes ensuring that no process is using the drive, then requesting that in-flight buffers and caches are committed to stable storage. The exact steps for powering off the drive depends on the drive itself and the interconnect used. For drives connected through USB, the effect is that the USB device will be deconfigured followed by disabling the upstream hub port it is connected to.

Note that as some physical devices contain multiple drives (for example 4-in-1 flash card reader USB devices) powering off one drive may affect other drives. Applications can examine the "SiblingId" property to determine such relationships.

There are not a lot of guarantees associated with this method so it should only be called in response to an user action. Usually the effect is that the drive disappears as if it was unplugged.

This method only works if the "CanPowerOff" property is set to TRUE.

Since 2.0.0

The "Vendor" property

Vendor  readable   s

A name for the vendor of the drive or blank if unknown.

The "Model" property

Model  readable   s

A name for the model of the drive or blank if unknown.

The "Revision" property

Revision  readable   s

Firmware Revision or blank if unknown.

The "Serial" property

Serial  readable   s

Serial number of the drive or blank if unknown.

The "WWN" property

WWN  readable   s

The World Wide Name of the drive or blank if unknown.

The "Id" property

Id  readable   s

A unique and persistent identifier for the device or blank if no such identifier is available.

This identifier is guaranteed to not include the slash character '/' (U+002F SOLIDUS) which means it can be used as a filename.

Examples: “ST32000542AS-6XW00W51”, “HITACHI-HTS723232A7A364-E3834563KRG2HN”, “INTEL-SSDSA2MH080G1GC-CVEM842101HD080DGN”.

The "Configuration" property

Configuration  readable   a{sv}

A set of configuration directives that are applied to the drive when it is connected (e.g. at start-up, hotplug or resume).

This is an dict of items with the following known keys:

The contents of this property is read from the configuration file /etc/udisks2/IDENTIFIER.conf where IDENTIFIER is the value of the "Id" property. See udisks(8) for the file format of this file.

Use the SetConfiguration() method to change the value of this property.

The "Media" property

Media  readable   s

The kind of media currently in the drive or blank if unknown.

See the "MediaCompatibility" property for known values.

The "MediaCompatibility" property

MediaCompatibility  readable   as

The physical kind of media the drive uses or the type of the drive or blank if unknown. Known values include

The "MediaRemovable" property

MediaRemovable  readable   b

Whether the media can be removed from the drive.

Note that this may be overridden from what the hardware reports - for example, USB thumb drives often report that they are using removable media while in fact the media is not removable.

The "MediaAvailable" property

MediaAvailable  readable   b

Set to FALSE if no medium is available.

This is always TRUE if "MediaChangeDetected" is FALSE.

The "MediaChangeDetected" property

MediaChangeDetected  readable   b

Set to TRUE only if media changes are detected.

Media changes are detected on all modern disk drives through either polling or an asynchronous notification mechanism. The only known disk drives that cannot report media changes are PC floppy drives.

The "Size" property

Size  readable   t

The size of the drive (or the media currently in the drive).

This is always 0 if "MediaChangeDetected" is FALSE.

The "TimeDetected" property

TimeDetected  readable   t

The time the drive was first detected.

This is expressed in micro-seconds since the Epoch Jan 1, 1970 0:00 UTC.

The "TimeMediaDetected" property

TimeMediaDetected  readable   t

The earliest time media was last detected or 0 if media is not available.

This is expressed in micro-seconds since the Epoch Jan 1, 1970 0:00 UTC.

The "Optical" property

Optical  readable   b

TRUE if the drive contains an optical disc.

The "OpticalBlank" property

OpticalBlank  readable   b

TRUE if the disc is blank.

This is only valid if the property "Optical" is TRUE.

The "OpticalNumTracks" property

OpticalNumTracks  readable   u

The number of tracks.

This is only valid if the property "Optical" is TRUE.

The "OpticalNumAudioTracks" property

OpticalNumAudioTracks  readable   u

The number of audio tracks.

This is only valid if the property "Optical" is TRUE.

The "OpticalNumDataTracks" property

OpticalNumDataTracks  readable   u

The number of data tracks.

This is only valid if the property "Optical" is TRUE.

The "OpticalNumSessions" property

OpticalNumSessions  readable   u

The number of sessions.

This is only valid if the property "Optical" is TRUE.

The "RotationRate" property

RotationRate  readable   i

The rotational rate of the drive.

The "ConnectionBus" property

ConnectionBus  readable   s

The physical connection bus used for the drive as seen by the user. This is typically used to draw a USB or Firewire emblem on top of an icon in an user interface.

Note that this property has nothing to do with the low-level command-set used (such as ATA-8) or what low-level connection bus (such as SATA, eSATA, PATA, SAS2 etc) is used.

Known values include:

The "Seat" property

Seat  readable   s

A string identifying what seat the drive is plugged into, if any.

The "Removable" property

Removable  readable   b

A hint whether the drive and/or its media is considered removable by the user.

This includes drives with removable media (cf. the "MediaRemovable" property), Flash media such as SD cards and drives on hotpluggable buses such as USB or Firewire (cf. the "ConnectionBus" property).

Note that this is only a guess.

The "Ejectable" property

Ejectable  readable   b

Whether the media can be ejected from the drive or the drive accepts an eject command to switch its state so it displays e.g. a "Safe To Remove" message to the user.

Note that this is only a guess.

The "SortKey" property

SortKey  readable   s

A string that can be used for sorting drive objects.

The "CanPowerOff" property

CanPowerOff  readable   b

Whether the drive can be safely removed / powered off. See the PowerOff() method for more information.

See udisks(8) for how to influence the value of this property.

Since 2.0.0

The "SiblingId" property

SiblingId  readable   s

An opaque token that, if non-blank, is used to group drives that are part of the same physical device.

Since 2.0.0