Hard drive testing software
- Thread starter bmacklin
- Start date
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Live Linux cd + badblocks -wsv /dev/sdX+ smartmontools (to check values before and after). Free and easy to perform on many disks at once via tmux.
Concur, badblocks here in a loop (sort out devices/range first of course)...GNU screen can be helpful as well (very similar to tmux).
'for i in /dev/sd{b..i}; do badblocks -wsv $i; done'
so badblocks -vws /dev/sdc shows
(60/0/0)
as the output. What do the three numbers mean? Secondly, all modern drives have bad sector remapping right? Is there a way to tell which sectors have been remapped? Smartctl says the drive as healthy despite these bad sectors. Is this drive still okay to use?
(60/0/0)
as the output. What do the three numbers mean? Secondly, all modern drives have bad sector remapping right? Is there a way to tell which sectors have been remapped? Smartctl says the drive as healthy despite these bad sectors. Is this drive still okay to use?
The meaning of 0/0/527405 errors is <number of read errors>/<number of write errors>/<number of corruption errors>
From:
badblocks - ArchWiki
What is the actual output of smartctl -a /dev/sdc? I never look at the PASS rating of SMART as definitely saying a drive is good (unless it says FAILED, then it's failed). Evaluating the raw values is really the proper way to do this.
I'll check when I get home later. But this morning I saw a message from Badblocks about how the drive should be replaced. :'(
Oh well, it's an old 1 TB well beyond its rated lifetime, but I have another one that I bought at the same time that is still going strong.
I'll see if I can remap those unreadable sectors to something else. I would still like to use this drive in a mirror array, maybe for scratch data.
UnRAID has a script called preclear.sh . It may be adapted to other systems but I've only used it with my UnRAID setup.
"A utility to "burn-in" a new disk, before adding it to your array has been requested several times. Also requested is a process to "pre-clear" a hard disk before adding it to your array. When a special "signature" is detected, the lengthy "clearing" step otherwise performed by unRAID is skipped."
Read more here:
preclear_disk.sh - a new utility to burn-in and pre-clear disks for quick add
I've used this on over 100+ drives and I've found drives that fail to be cleared will go or are unsuitable to use in my arrays. I live and breathe by this program as it's saved me from several bad disks before I even got started.
"A utility to "burn-in" a new disk, before adding it to your array has been requested several times. Also requested is a process to "pre-clear" a hard disk before adding it to your array. When a special "signature" is detected, the lengthy "clearing" step otherwise performed by unRAID is skipped."
Read more here:
preclear_disk.sh - a new utility to burn-in and pre-clear disks for quick add
I've used this on over 100+ drives and I've found drives that fail to be cleared will go or are unsuitable to use in my arrays. I live and breathe by this program as it's saved me from several bad disks before I even got started.
Just an idea here - I wonder if we could take some of these and make little resources/ guides for them in the forums: Resources | ServeTheHome and ServeThe.Biz Forums I have started putting tidbits there (e.g. default passwords) as I have run into them.
A guide on how to test things would be good.
especially if it was comprehensive enough to cover Windows/Linux/Mac/live boot (usb or optic disk)