StablebitScanner equivalent to unRAID's "pre-clear" functionality?

[sqlazer]

Hi there,

I just ordered some used enterprise SAS drives, and before I put any files on them I wanna stress test for a few days and make sure that everything is kosher. Years ago, when I ran unRAID, there was a process called "pre-clear" where you would have all zeros written to all sectors of the drive, and then read back to verify, and then this is repeated for $X number of times.

Is there an equivalent to this in the Drivepool/Scanner world? Alternatively, is there any sort of other recommended procedure here, or maybe a different stress test software I can run on my Server 2022 drivepool/scanner setup?

[Shane]

Perhaps a combination of CyLog's FillDisk (does what it implies: fills a disk with files full of zeroes) and StableBit's Scanner (scans drive sectors to verify they're readable)?

There's also utilities such as Seagate Tools and HDDScan.

[geebee]

On 1/5/2024 at 12:40 PM, sqlazer said:

Hi there,

I just ordered some used enterprise SAS drives, and before I put any files on them I wanna stress test for a few days and make sure that everything is kosher. Years ago, when I ran unRAID, there was a process called "pre-clear" where you would have all zeros written to all sectors of the drive, and then read back to verify, and then this is repeated for $X number of times.

Is there an equivalent to this in the Drivepool/Scanner world? Alternatively, is there any sort of other recommended procedure here, or maybe a different stress test software I can run on my Server 2022 drivepool/scanner setup?

HD Sentinel has something similar, but it's not free. It has multiple surface tests you can perform on a drive, in addition to the standard SMART tests. The equivalent you are asking about would be the write + read test, or reinitialize disk surface (more in-depth). You can configure the data pattern (zero byte, sector count, random data, etc).

It has overlap with Stablebit scanner in terms of smart monitoring, etc, but scanner has a much better layout to organize/sort and custom name drives. I've always used sentinel's surface tests to prepare new disks before putting data on them. I basically reinitialize them.

https://www.hdsentinel.com/help/en/61_surfacetest.html

You can configure a couple of other things on the tests.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Just to be clear, StableBit Scanner actively avoids writing to the drives, except for in very specific cases.  

As mentioned, there are some other utilities that can be used to accomplish this. 

However, personally, I use a full (non-quick) format of the drives, persionally.  Also, diskpart's "clean all" command will clear the entire drive, and write over every sector on the drive. (same as a full format, but also writes over the partition info).