Re: [gentoo-user] Want to seriously test a NEW hard drive

[Adam Carter <adamcarter3@gmail.com>]

> To wipe a drive use dban. - live CD which uses (US) gov approved
> standards of wipe methods/patterns.

Or shred, which comes with coreutils.

> dd is only going to show sectors on a failed drive - too late!
>
> To explain, modern drives have a store of locations they can use to
> transparently replace any failed locations (apparently similar to the
> way SSD's do it)  - the internal drive electronics handle this and its
> not visible externally though smart data seems to show it, but as google
> says, smart is a bit suspect.  The problem of a bad sector will only
> show once all the reserved locations are used up, by which time the
> drive is usually in rampant failure.
>
> I do suspect this is one reason for googles results - actual failures of
> the media (as against the motors/electronics are much as they always
> have been, but the drives are not reporting them until its too late.

Ahh - go to know. My reasoning assumed that smart reports all remaps.