From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Apr 18 19:27:27 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 909F516A401 for ; Wed, 18 Apr 2007 19:27:27 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from djp@polands.org) Received: from ms-smtp-01.rdc-kc.rr.com (ms-smtp-01.rdc-kc.rr.com [24.94.166.115]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5BE5A13C457 for ; Wed, 18 Apr 2007 19:27:27 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from djp@polands.org) Received: from corinth.polands.org (CPE-75-87-219-217.new.res.rr.com [75.87.219.217]) by ms-smtp-01.rdc-kc.rr.com (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id l3IJRONF003310; Wed, 18 Apr 2007 14:27:24 -0500 (CDT) Received: from ammon.polands.org (ammon.polands.org [172.16.1.7]) by corinth.polands.org (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id l3IJRN8w070897; Wed, 18 Apr 2007 14:27:23 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from djp@polands.org) Received: from ammon.polands.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ammon.polands.org (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id l3IJRNiD052455; Wed, 18 Apr 2007 14:27:23 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from djp@ammon.polands.org) Received: (from djp@localhost) by ammon.polands.org (8.13.8/8.13.8/Submit) id l3IJRMV7052454; Wed, 18 Apr 2007 14:27:22 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from djp) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 14:27:22 -0500 From: Doug Poland To: "illoai@gmail.com" Message-ID: <20070418192722.GA52435@polands.org> References: <52060.69.129.174.18.1176828969.squirrel@email.polands.org> <6.0.0.22.2.20070417134620.0261dac0@mail.computinginnovations.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.11 X-Virus-Scanned: Symantec AntiVirus Scan Engine X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.4/3122/Wed Apr 18 12:53:39 2007 on corinth.polands.org X-Virus-Status: Clean Cc: questions@freebsd.org, Derek Ragona Subject: Re: Exercising ATA disks in hopes of revealing errors X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 19:27:27 -0000 On Wed, Apr 18, 2007 at 11:46:50AM -0500, illoai@gmail.com wrote: > On 17/04/07, Derek Ragona wrote: > >At 11:56 AM 4/17/2007, Doug Poland wrote: > >>Hello, > >> > >>I've just come into possesion of a bunch of 80GB ATA drives. I'd > >>like to quickly and efficiently test each drive to see if it's free > >>of errors and suitable for deployment in non-critical workstations. > >> > >>Using FreeBSD 6.x as a testing platform, what tools do people use to > >>stress-test disk drives? I've searched ports and done some googling > >>but nothing stands out. > > > >Use the manufacture's utilities to test the drives. Each > >manufacturer has bootable test and stress utilities. > > > I have used this: > http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ > That is packed full with nice stuff. Thanks > AFIK, there isn't much in FreeBSD for this sort of low level > diagnostics, ubcd boots faster, and given a decent junk machine, you > can test 3 hard drives per reboot*. If you can hunt down a pci ata > card, you can probably manage quite a few more. > > Having an 80-wire cable is nice for some of the diagnostics (if your > junk machine isn't very old it will be pretty unlikely to have a 40 > wire cable, so ignore this anyway). > > If you really want to use freebsd, the other suggestions to use > ports/sysutils/smartmontools and dd (personally I use > ports/sysutils/sdd for its -inull flag) are probably what I would > follow. > I don't have to run FreeBSD as the host, I just thought there would be some good tools to accomplish the task. The idea of a bootable CD-ROM is nice cause that gives me 4 empty ATA "sockets" for testing in my test machine. -- Regards, Doug