Is it possible to mount and preclear a 3TB external drive using a Windows 7 x64 PC?  The only available connection to the external drive is USB 3.0 and my server only has 2.0.  How long will a preclear take over USB??

 

I want to confirm the drive is ok for use in my UnRAID server before cracking the case (only option with Seagate Expansion drives) and voiding the warranty.  I've heard some people have still been able to show warranty of the bare drive but I'd rather not risk it if the drive is bad to start.  Any help appreciated!

Is it possible to mount and preclear a 3TB external drive using a Windows 7 x64 PC?  The only available connection to the external drive is USB 3.0 and my server only has 2.0.  How long will a preclear take over USB??

 

I want to confirm the drive is ok for use in my UnRAID server before cracking the case (only option with Seagate Expansion drives) and voiding the warranty.  I've heard some people have still been able to show warranty of the bare drive but I'd rather not risk it if the drive is bad to start.  Any help appreciated!

Not preclear it but you could just run the drive through something like DBAN for a couple of passes.  If DBAN kills it then the drive is bad.

 

As for getting smart information... not sure, but there are probably windows utilities that will give you that info also though maybe not over a USB connection.

Is it possible to mount and preclear a 3TB external drive using a Windows 7 x64 PC?  The only available connection to the external drive is USB 3.0 and my server only has 2.0.  How long will a preclear take over USB??

 

I want to confirm the drive is ok for use in my UnRAID server before cracking the case (only option with Seagate Expansion drives) and voiding the warranty.  I've heard some people have still been able to show warranty of the bare drive but I'd rather not risk it if the drive is bad to start.  Any help appreciated!

Basically... you cannot run the preclear script in windows, regardless of the version of windows.

 

You can plug the drive into your unRAID server via USB.  If it recognizes it at the higher speed, great.

As far as how fast, can't give you a guess.  It takes about 45 hours when connected by SATA cable.

 

It is also possible to boot your windows PC using a unRAID flash drive.  DO NOT ASSIGN ANY DRIVES, AT ALL, or unRAID will overwrite their partitioning.

 

As long as you do not assign any drives to the array, but only invoke the pre-clear script on the specific drive attached by USB, it should also be possible to use your windows PC hardware, but not windows itself.

 

I would actually unplug the existing windows disk before doing this.  If you accidentally specify the window's disk to be cleared, it will be zeroed.

 

Now, depending on how much you like MS products, this might be a good thing, but it will also erase all your data on your PC, and that would probably be a bad thing.  If you unplug the PC's disk, it cannot be accidentally wiped clean.

 

Before doing a preclear, you can get an idea of the read speed of the USB connection on the unRAID server by plugging it in there and typing

hdparm -t -T /dev/sdX

where sdX = the three letter device name of your USB disk.

 

 

Joe L.

It is possible, even likely, that you can do the entire run under Cygwin (a Linux run-time environment for Windows). And, if the USB3-Sata bridge in the enclosure is good, it will take no longer than a "native" (Linux/SATA) run.

 

Side note Crystal Disk will give you smart data and its free.

Thanks everyone for all of great feedback...I really appreciate it!  I'm sure I'm not the only one that will find this info useful given the current disparity between bare drive pricing vs with an enclosure. 

Western Digital has a free to download "Lifetime diagnostics" tool that lets you run short and long SMART tests and also lets you  write zero's. Works on all kinds of disks.

 

If you let it write zero's, long smart test, write zero's again, small smart test and all results are still ok you are pretty ok..

Western Digital has a free to download "Lifetime diagnostics" tool that lets you run short and long SMART tests and also lets you  write zero's. Works on all kinds of disks.

 

I use this tool to run a read/write zeoes/read test on new drives before installing them in my unraid box and running a couple of pre-clears.  The version I have will not allow a USB connected disk to be used, just SATA connected disks.

 

Stephen

 

Western Digital has a free to download "Lifetime diagnostics" tool that lets you run short and long SMART tests and also lets you  write zero's. Works on all kinds of disks.

 

I use this tool to run a read/write zeoes/read test on new drives before installing them in my unraid box and running a couple of pre-clears.  The version I have will not allow a USB connected disk to be used, just SATA connected disks.

 

Stephen

 

The version I have does usb drives... There is no version number though, I downloaded it a month ago so I guess it is a matter of downloading the latest version.

 

I actually have (very usefull and cheap) a docking station on my desk that I can just plugin drives in, when plugged in they are recognised as usb connected.

Western Digital has a free to download "Lifetime diagnostics" tool that lets you run short and long SMART tests and also lets you  write zero's. Works on all kinds of disks.

 

I use this tool to run a read/write zeoes/read test on new drives before installing them in my unraid box and running a couple of pre-clears.  The version I have will not allow a USB connected disk to be used, just SATA connected disks.

 

Stephen

 

The version I have does usb drives... There is no version number though, I downloaded it a month ago so I guess it is a matter of downloading the latest version.

 

My version is quite a bit older than that, I guess it would be worth downloading a new version now. 

 

Thanks,

 

Stephen