Home » Questions » Computers [ Ask a new question ]

How do you stress-test your Hard Drives?

How do you stress-test your Hard Drives?

When looking for large new drives (>= 1 TB) on newegg and the like, I note a number of reviews talking about drives being either D.O.A. or hitting the Click of Death (or even releasing the Magic Smoke) within a week or so of use. A portion of the reviews mention this phenomenon whether the drive in question is Western Digital, Hitachi or whatever.

Asked by: Guest | Views: 294
Total answers/comments: 1
bert [Entry]

Spinrite does this, both to recover lost data and also as preventative. Using mode 4, it flips each bit 4 times (on/off/on/off or vice versa) looking for bad sectors. If it finds them, it attempts to correct them and mark that sector as bad, or it moves on. Great maintenance for drives and forcing SMART data