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Am 09.07.2013 00:48, schrieb Paul Hartman: |
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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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> |
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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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> |
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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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> |
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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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> |
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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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> |
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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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> |
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> Good luck :) |
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|
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Thanks for your explanations, Paul ... I will see if I have the patience |
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to wait for hours or days :-) |
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|
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Stefan |