[Nottingham] 'Memtest86+' for HDDs and SSDs?

[Duncan]

On 25/04/12 23:31, Roger Light wrote:
>> (Or am I the only one to have had new HDDs "doa" or soon-to-die?)
> I think a fair rule of thumb is that middle aged drives are safe. New
> drives are unproven and if there is something wrong it's likely to
> fail in the first few months. Old drives are more likely to fail
> because of mechanical wear.
>
> I reckon that if a drive reaches 3-6 months under normal usage then
> it'll probably keep going for a good few years.
>
We used to see a fair few drive failures on long running systems when they were eventually
rebooted.  This was because the HDD lubricant dispersed over the years but with
dynamic friction being less than static friction the disk would keep going until the platters
came to a stop - and then wouldn't restart.

Have fun,
Duncan