hard drive burn-in

[Tom Metro]

Jarod Wilson wrote:
> I'm partial to running mkfs with full read/write badblocks checking.

Yeah, that sounds well suited to the task.


Matthew Gillen wrote:
> I like to use SMART to do tests:
> The 'long' SMART test reads every block on the disk,
> and can take a very long time.

Yes, that's a good idea.


> I have a cron job that runs a 'long' test every month on my file
> server, so I guess it's not really a burn-in thing... :-)

As do I, but that might not have happened until after the drive was 
deployed in a RAID set...without the reminder to do it as part of the 
prep procedure.


Jack Coats wrote:
> Most new drives I use, I do not test, more than a good format.

Reading reviews of consumer grade drives makes me think that a bit a 
stress testing on any new or refurb drive is time well spent. There seem 
to be a lot of cases of infant mortality.


> ...just the process of building an array over them did a pretty good job...

Yes, and I do plan to put these drives into an array and mdadm does give 
them a pretty good workout when building the array, but I'd really like 
to spot any likely defects before I get that far.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

  -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/