[PLUG] Hard drive testing.

Aaron Burt aaron at bavariati.org
Wed Jun 30 11:26:02 UTC 2004


On Wed, Jun 30, 2004 at 10:22:01AM -0700, Russ Johnson wrote:
> What do folks use for hard drive testing?
> 
> I have a drive I think might be bad, but I can't verify it.
> 
> I'm looking for something like memtest86, for hard drives.

That would be badblocks, which can do a read-only or a destructive
write-read-verify test.  It'll even do a nondestructive read-write-
read-verify-restore cycle so it puts the data back when it's done.

You can tell e2fsck to do a readonly badblocks scan with the -c option
and a nondestructive write-read test with -cc.  
Takes a loooong time, though.

And yes, the SMART tools can tell you a bit about what the drive thinks
about its own health.  But we all know how accurate self-assessments can
be...




More information about the PLUG mailing list