I'm trying to expedite my setup a bit, and with parts on order from NewEgg, I've got two WD Black 1TB drives I'd like to try and "preclear" without having my unRAID box yet. I plan to run the two WD 1TB Black drives initially (one as parity, the other as data), and eventually add another same drive that I would go and add.
Could I use something like a boot CD with Parted Magic (Linux disk utility package) to do an Internal Secure Erase on the drives? If I recall these drives support enhanced internal secure erasure, and it will write 0's to all of the sectors.
Is there any disadvantage to trying to do this ahead of time, or should I just suck it up and wait until Wednesday when I get the parts and do the normal unRAID pre-clear?
Any other tips greatly appreciated. I'm mainly trying to make use of the preparation time I have now.
