What is your pre/post shuck routine?

jimthebob

jimthebob

Gawd
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Mar 23, 2013
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Welp, I came home from work today to the wonderful click of death on a 4tb RAID1 setup today. One drive has, you guessed it, failed. Great, guess I have to order new drives. I settled on a pair of 8tb WD Elements from Amazon so I can shuck 'em.

My question is, what is everyone's routine for testing/verifying shucked drives either before or after the shuck process? My tentative plan is to run the included WD (or similar) drive test. I've also heard of people using a test version of Unraid and preclear but I don't want to mess with all that.

So what does the [H] forum do with their shucked drives? Drop 'em in and hope for the best? Run a WD or similar utility to test the drive? Something else? Lemme know, I'd appreciate it!
 
Power up while still in the enclosure, to make sure it works at all. Run basic test via WD utilities and maybe the long test (8+ hours). If you don't want to do the long test, just spend a couple of hours transferring files over to the new drive and see how it handles it. Small files and large files.

More hardcore would be badblocks in linux:
https://www.tecmint.com/check-linux-hard-disk-bad-sectors-bad-blocks/

From linux or windows GsmartControl which is a GUI for smartmontools, smart health status and some tests. This is probably what I use the most for windows or linux as it is hardware brand agnostic.

https://gsmartcontrol.sourceforge.io/home/index.php/About
 
I run a 4 pass badblocks data destructive test (writes 4 patterns on every byte and verifies that every byte contains the patterns written) on every drive I receive at home and at work. For 10TB drives this takes about 1 week to complete.

I monitor the SMART status before, during and after the test.

Using this proceedure I detected the bug in the 2TB Samsung F4 firmware:

https://hardforum.com/threads/new-drive-badblocks.1551753/
 
jordan12 said:
I use this:

https://stablebit.com/Scanner


It is an awesome scanner and will also check and monitor Smart data as well. Saved my ass a few times in the past.
Click to expand...

Based on a quick look at the site, it looks like the scanner is an "always on" kinda feature (for lack of a better term) that monitors the drive. Can you tell me if there's a dedicated non-throttled scan you can do on a drive like I'm looking into? And here's the excerpt from the site I'm talking about:

The StableBit Scanner performs periodic scans of the entire surface of all your hard drives, ensuring that every bit remains readable.
  • This "refreshes" the surface, and forces the hard drive to deal with any latent damage before it turns into data loss.
  • The scans are throttled in order to not interfere with any existing disk activity, ensuring that your system continues to run at peak performance.
  • If any damage is found, you are notified by email, SMS, and on your mobile device, immediately.
drescherjm said:
I run a 4 pass badblocks data destructive test (writes 4 patterns on every byte and verifies that every byte contains the patterns written) on every drive I receive at home and at work. For 10TB drives this takes about 1 week to complete.

I monitor the SMART status before, during and after the test.

Using this proceedure I detected the bug in the 2TB Samsung F4 firmware:

https://hardforum.com/threads/new-drive-badblocks.1551753/
Click to expand...

Damn, a 1 week drive scan, not sure I'm up for that :confused: Especially since one drive just died, I'd be willing to dedicate a day or two to scanning a new drive but not near a week. I need to get the drives checked out and online in their RAID in a reasonable amount of time so I can get data moved over.

And yes, before anyone says anything, I know RAID isn't a backup and you should have all your (valuable) data duplicated both on site and off site in a best case scenario. But in my case, I'm talking about roughly 4tb of movies, TV shows, etc. If I lose it, sure it sucks but given enough time, I'd rebuild (I'd just rather not have to).
 
jimbob200521 said:
Based on a quick look at the site, it looks like the scanner is an "always on" kinda feature (for lack of a better term) that monitors the drive. Can you tell me if there's a dedicated non-throttled scan you can do on a drive like I'm looking into? And here's the excerpt from the site I'm talking about:

The StableBit Scanner performs periodic scans of the entire surface of all your hard drives, ensuring that every bit remains readable.
  • This "refreshes" the surface, and forces the hard drive to deal with any latent damage before it turns into data loss.
  • The scans are throttled in order to not interfere with any existing disk activity, ensuring that your system continues to run at peak performance.
  • If any damage is found, you are notified by email, SMS, and on your mobile device, immediately.

It does scan the drives periodically. And does it in an automated fashion. But if you do not want that feature, simply turn off the auto monitoring\scanning.

Then go into the program, and you can then start a scan on a specific drive if you wish. You can also read all of the Smart data as well on that specific drive.

I think a 4TB drive drive finishes overnight.
Click to expand...
 
I format the drive when I get it. I never get rid of them.

There is always a PC that can take another SSD, no matter the size, for something.
 

4tb drives are going out, 8tb drives are in the mail to be installed when they come in tomorrow. Sounds like with that test an 8tb drive might take a day or so.
 
jimbob200521 said:
4tb drives are going out, 8tb drives are in the mail to be installed when they come in tomorrow. Sounds like with that test an 8tb drive might take a day or so.
Click to expand...


I mean I can start a 4 TB drive when I hit the hay at around 9PM, and when I get up at 5:30AM, it has been completed. So maybe 16 hours for an 8TB drive.
 
jordan12 said:
I mean I can start a 4 TB drive when I hit the hay at around 9PM, and when I get up at 5:30AM, it has been completed. So maybe 16 hours for an 8TB drive.
Click to expand...
I just got a WD 12 TB external from BestBuy, and the complete format in the case took 26 hours.
 
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