Disk attacks are a method used to test the resilience of distributed systems by intentionally consuming disk space on storage devices to simulate low disk conditions and analyze system responses. These attacks are useful for verifying that applications can handle low disk space and latency without failure, ensuring that automatic disk cleanup and compression methods are effective, and validating the functionality of dynamic provisioning systems like database sharding. Disk attacks work by writing data to a specified directory until a set percentage of disk usage is reached, and can be configured with parameters such as the number of workers, block size, and volume percentage. This process helps organizations lower operating expenses by dynamically adding storage when necessary and improve detection times for storage-related incidents. Gremlin, the platform discussed in the text, provides tools for running these disk attacks and offers scenarios to guide users through different use cases, emphasizing the importance of recording observations and discussing outcomes to demonstrate the value of these experiments to the organization.