Stress testing/burning in HDDs

[Chuck Swiger]

On Sep 27, 2007, at 10:43 AM, Don O'Neil wrote:
> I have an array that has a drive that keeps timing out/failing...  
> So I need
> to replace it. However, I want to stress test/burn in a replacement  
> disk
> first.
>
> What is the best way to do this?

It's reasonable to start with something like a:

    dd if=/dev/your_disk of=/dev/null bs=5120

...to at least try reading every sector on the drive as a basic  
sanity check.  Better would be to install /usr/ports/sysutils/ 
smartmontools and run some SMART self-tests via:

    smartctl -t long /dev/your_disk

smartctl even understands some types of RAID controllers, but not all  
of them....

-- 
-Chuck