Burning in a disk on Windows

[Rajahal]

I received my new 1 TB WD10EARS 64MB drive today.  I'm curious to know an easy (and free) way to burn in the disk on my Windows 7 desktop, instead of on my unRAID server.  I know that Joe L.'s preclear script is the best way to burn in a disk on the server, however, I simply don't have time to install the disk in my server at the moment.  I would like to burn the disk in using the Rosewill HDD Bay that was included with the new disk, or possibly my desktop's hot swap bay if the USB bottleneck is an issue.

 

I currently left the disk in the hands of a program simply called BurnInTest, and set it to burn in only the new disk.  I also set it to random reads and writes, I believe, and I had it run for an hour.  I figure if nothing else, this program will help my subsequent SMART tests through SpeedFan be more accurate.

 

Perhaps I will still preclear the disk as I add it to my server, but I honestly don't mind the downtime associated with unRAID's default clearing and adding of a disk, since I run it overnight anyway.

 

In a related vein, does the long SMART test read and write every sector of a disk like the preclear script does?  If a brand new disk passes the long SMART test, would you trust it?

[Joe L.]

I received my new

1 TB WD10EARS 64MB drive today.  I'm curious to know an easy (and free) way to burn in the disk on my Windows 7 desktop, instead of on my unRAID server.  I know that Joe L.'s preclear script is the best way to burn in a disk on the server, however, I simply don't have time to install the disk in my server at the moment.  I would like to burn the disk in using the Rosewill HDD Bay that was included with the new disk, or possibly my desktop's hot swap bay if the USB bottleneck is an issue.

If it is a USB interface, you can plug it into the unRAID server.  It should recognize the drive and let you run the pre-clear from there.  It might not be fast, but it should work just fine.

Perhaps I will still preclear the disk as I add it to my server, but I honestly don't mind the downtime associated with unRAID's default clearing and adding of a disk, since I run it overnight anyway.

The unRAID clear does not perform any pre-read or post-read to cause the disk to identify un-readable sectors.  It just writes.  The first time you learn that a sector is un-readable is in some subsequent parity check. (and that may not be for days)  For that reason, it is not as good at identifying bad sectors.  It also writes linearly, hardly stressing the drive at all.  Although the pre-clear script also write linearly in the same way, pre-clear reads randomly interspersed with linear sectors making the disk seek a LOT more than usual when just playing movies. 

In a related vein, does the long SMART test read and write every sector of a disk like the preclear script does?

No, it just does a read test. As far as I know, it does no writing.

  If a brand new disk passes the long SMART test, would you trust it?

It is better than nothing.  (Actually, most window's users trust the disk and do nothing to test it at all.  So, it is way better than that!)

 

Joe L.

[Rajahal]

Thanks Joe.

 

I didn't realize that unRAID will recognize a USB external drive out-of-the-box...I thought some modification was necessary.  That does sound pretty simple, maybe I'll just do that.

[Joe L.]

Thanks Joe.

 

I didn't realize that unRAID will recognize a USB external drive out-of-the-box...I thought some modification was necessary.  That does sound pretty simple, maybe I'll just do that.

You will not be able to assign it to the array if it is a USB drive, but the pre-clear script should not care.