Re: [ALUG] How to exercise a disk drive?

2009/8/11 Chris G <cl@isbd.net>:

Are there any disk exercising/testing programs for Linux?  Well, I'm sure there are, so does anyone have any recommendations?

I want to stick a couple of old (as in I have used them in systems now defunct) IDE disk drives into my Linux box and make sure that there is nothing radically wrong with them.  They're not *that* old, 160Gb and 200Gb respectively.  Destructive (of data) teting is fine, I don't even know at the moment whether they're ex-Windows or ex_linux.

Read up about SMART and "man smartctl". Also try the disk's manufacturer's website for test tools (usually required before RMAs). Hope that helps, Tim.