Some people suggest running a "stress test," while others say this creates unnecessary wear and tear. Mostly I would like to find out if a given WD or HGST drive should be returned because there is evidence there are/will be issues, or if it is ok to use in an NAS.

Which tools do you use to do this? How long a test period do you prefer?

Whatever I need to do, it will need to be done using Windows 7 Pro or Windows 10.

Thank you for your help.

I go with redundant, cheap drives since in a true RAID backup, one drive going tits up doesn't matter much. Turns out, I've had pretty good luck so far.

I would never trust only one NAS drive as a backup no matter how solid it seems.

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:
I go with redundant, cheap drives since in a true RAID backup, one drive going tits up doesn't matter much. Turns out, I've had pretty good luck so far.

I would never trust only one NAS drive as a backup no matter how solid it seems.

I am planning on buying multiple drives to rotate in and out of an NAS using RAID 1. The drives sometimes fail early on and it would be nice to predict that while I can exchange it for another drive, before I load my data onto it.

Redundant drives with warranties. Any good NAS unit should allow you to hot swap and give you an email alert that one of the drives goes out.

What he said ^^^^^

I certainly wouldn't be "rotating" drives, thus putting unnecessary wear and tear on the NAS' drive connectors.

RAID1 tolerates a single-drive failure. That's the point of it. Replace drives as-needed.

A good NAS will allow you to schedule SMART tests to be run regularly and report. That should usually give you plenty of advance warning a drive is nearing failure.

That and your ears

And yes: I take 'em out of the box, plug 'em in and use 'em. Been running RAID arrays for over two decades. Never been an issue.

Unless you have a complete drive test lab, odds are you can’t replicate the thoroughness of the manufacturer’s tests, so just pull them out of the box and use them.

quote:

Which tools do you use to do this?

I test my drives with WD Lifeguard Diagnostics
I don't stress test them.
A whole sector by sector check can take several hours.

If I need to check performance I use ATTO Disk Benchmark Test Software

Note: NAS use is generally not a high performance scenario but if it is by lots of users and highly saturated usage then the NAS might be replaced by real server with a real RAID card and super fast drives along with Network enhancement considerations.

As far a rotating a drive that is not something I would do.
I might have an extra on hand or insert one as hot spare if I had a hot swap by and an empty slot.

BackBlaze publishes the results of using hard drives from many manufacturers and how they have experienced failure in real use situations. The information is available here: Hard Drive Data and Stats. When looking at drive brands and specific models from those brands I review this information before buying.
Cheers,
Kevin

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:

quote:

Which tools do you use to do this?

I test my drives with WD Lifeguard Diagnostics
I don't stress test them.
A whole sector by sector check can take several hours.

If I need to check performance I use ATTO Disk Benchmark Test Software

Thank you for answering my question. This will help me do what I want to do.

I'd just buy WD red drives, and one of their NAS appliances and let it do it's thing.

quote:

Originally posted by FenderBender:
I'd just buy WD red drives, and one of their NAS appliances and let it do it's thing.

I agree with WD Red, but I'd go with Synology NAS'.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by FenderBender:
I'd just buy WD red drives, and one of their NAS appliances and let it do it's thing.

I agree with WD Red, but I'd go with Synology NAS'.

This is what I am going to do.