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On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 1:27 PM, Stefan G. Weichinger <lists@×××××.at> wrote: |
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> Does it make sense to apply some sort of burn-in-procedure before |
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> actually formatting and using the disks? Running badblocks or something? |
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> |
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> I ask because I wait for that shiny new server and doing so might not |
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> hurt before installing gentoo. Or is that too paranoid and a waste of time? |
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Initially I ran the SMART long test and it found no errors. Then I did |
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badblocks read-only scan and it found some bad sectors. After that, |
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SMART tests failed to complete due to "failure reading LBA xxxxxxxxx". |
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I used hdparm to remap those sectors, but didn't feel entirely |
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confident in the disk at that point in time. |
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|
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So I ran the badblocks destructive read-write test and it completed |
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(after a couple days) with zero errors! How can it be? |
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Checking the SMART statistics afterward, I can see now there are |
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dozens of newly reallocated sectors. So that means the drive silently |
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replaced those bad sectors with spares, which is good! That is what it |
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is supposed to do! I don't feel happy about the fact that those bad |
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sectors exist in the first place, but the drive did what it was |
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designed to do when it encountered them. |
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|
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After the r/w badblocks test cycle finished, I ran SMART long-scan |
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again and this time it completed with no errors. |
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So I recommend to do the destructive read-write badblocks test, if you |
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can afford the hours (or days) spent waiting for it to complete. |
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SMART alone did not detect the errors initially, but neither did |
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badblocks actually identify the errors during its write test (because |
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the drive hides it). But the combination of badblocks and the |
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self-repairing code in the drive's firmware accomplished the goal of |
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making my disk free of errors (logically). |
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|
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Notes: |
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|
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WARNING! Be careful to give the correct device name when doing the |
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badblocks write test! There is no confirmation prompt! It immediately |
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starts destroying data at the beginning of the disk. |
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If you have a disk with 4k sector size, be sure to tell badblocks to |
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use a 4096 byte block size. It uses 1k block size by default, which |
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can cause the test to be very slow! In my system badblocks with 1k |
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block size read at 15MB/sec, while 4k block size read at over |
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160MB/sec! Using 1k block size on a 4k-sector disk also causes all |
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errors to be reported 4 times each. |
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Good luck :) |
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