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Mark Knecht wrote: |
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> On Mon, Jun 15, 2020 at 12:37 PM Dale <rdalek1967@×××××.com |
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> <mailto:rdalek1967@×××××.com>> wrote: |
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> > |
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> > Howdy, |
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> > |
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> > I finally bought a 8TB drive. It is used but they claim only a |
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> short duration. Still, I want to test it to be sure it is in grade A |
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> shape before putting a lot of data on it and depending on it. I am |
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> familiar with some tools already. I know about SMART but it is not |
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> always 100%. It seems to catch most problems but not all. I'm |
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> familiar with dd and writing all zeores or random to it to see if it |
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> can in fact write to all the parts of the drive but it is slow. It can |
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> take a long time to write and fill up a 8TB drive. Days maybe?? I |
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> googled and found a new tool but not sure how accurate it is since |
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> I've never used it before. The command is badblocks. It is installed |
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> on my system so I'm just curious as to what it will catch that others |
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> won't. Is it fast or slow like dd? |
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> > |
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> > I plan to run the SMART test anyway. It'll take several hours but |
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> I'd like to run some other test to catch errors that SMART may miss. |
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> If there is such a tool that does that. If you bought a used drive, |
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> what would you run other than the long version of SMART and its test? |
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> Would you spend the time to dd the whole drive? Would badblocks be a |
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> better tool? Is there another better tool for this? |
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> > |
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> > While I'm at it, when running dd, I have zero and random in /dev. |
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> Where does a person obtain a one? In other words, I can write all |
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> zeros, I can write all random but I can't write all ones since it |
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> isn't in /dev. Does that even exist? Can I create it myself |
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> somehow? Can I download it or install it somehow? I been curious |
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> about that for a good long while now. I just never remember to ask. |
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> > |
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> > When I add this 8TB drive to /home, I'll have 14TBs of space. If I |
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> leave the 3TB drive in instead of swapping it out, I could have about |
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> 17TBs of space. O_O |
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> > |
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> > Thanks to all. |
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> > |
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> > Dale |
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> > |
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> > :-) :-) |
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> |
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> The SMART test, long version, will do a very reasonable job catching |
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> problems. Run it 2 or 3 times if it makes you feel better. |
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> |
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> Chris's suggestion about Spinrite is another option but it is slow, |
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> slow, slow. Might take you weeks? On a drive that large if it worked |
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> at all. |
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> |
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> As an aside, but important, I fear that you're possibly falling into |
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> the trap most of us do at home. Please don't. Once you have 17TB of |
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> space on your system how are you planning on doing your weekly |
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> backups? Do you have 17TB+ on an external drive or system? Will you |
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> back up to BlueRay discs or something like that? |
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> |
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> Mark |
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|
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Way back, we used Spinrite to test drives. Think mid 90's. Yea, it was |
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slow then on what today is a tiny hard drive. Can't imagine modern |
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drive sizes. It is good tho. It reads/writes every single part of a |
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drive. It will generally find fault if there is one. |
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Right now, I'm backing up to a 8TB external drive, sadly it is a SMR |
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drive but it works. As I go along, I'll be breaking down my backups. |
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Example. I may have my Documents directory, which includes my camera |
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pics, backed up to one drive. I may have videos backed up to another |
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drive. Other directories may have to be on other drives. The biggest |
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things I don't want to lose: Camera pics that could not be replaced |
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except with a backup. Videos, some of which are no longer available. |
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That requires a large drive. It currently is approaching 6TBs and I |
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have several videos in other locations that are not included in that. |
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Documents which would be hard to recreate. Since I have all my emails |
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locally, I don't want to lose those either. Just a bit ago, I was |
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searching for posts regarding smartctl. I got quite a few hits. |
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Even if I build a NAS setup, I still need a backup arrangement. Even if |
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I have a RAID setup, still need backups. It gets complicated for sure. |
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Sort of expensive too. Just imagine if my DSL was 10 times faster. |
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O_O I'd need to order drives by the case. |
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|
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Dale |
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:-) :-) |