Spinrite.

[Janina Sajka]

Well, I still don't see that it does anything special. For instance, if
you're worried about bad blocks, the command badblocks is perfectly
useful for just that.

Janina

Tim Chase writes:
> On December 27, 2013, Janina Sajka wrote:
> > use standard Linux tools, e.g. e2fsck and the
> > smartmontools like smartctl.
> > 
> > This approach is fully accessible.
> > 
> > So, what does spinWrite give you that you can't do per the above?
> 
> Spinrite operates on the drive at the hardware level rather than
> filesystem-level (checked by e2fsck) or partition level.  I'm less
> familiar with smartctl, but it appears to offer some overlap in
> functionality with Spinrite.
> 
> In a way, the basic first level scan could possibly be replicated with
> "dd", reading the entire drive (/dev/sda) rather than a partition
> (/dev/sda1) and dumping the results to /dev/null which would force
> the drive to read every byte.  This triggers the drive to look at
> every byte, check the drive's integrity at that location, and let
> the hardware move the data in the event that spot is getting hard to
> read.  Based on the manpage, it sounds like smartctl might offer
> some similar functionality.  Beyond that, I believe that Spinrite does
> more aggressive scans that will persist in an attempt to read data,
> even when the drive returns hardware errors, and can actively talk to
> the drive controller to move that data elsewhere in the event it had
> trouble, then mark the blocks as bad at the hardware level.
> 
> Again, I'm only taking a stab in the dark based on the tidbits I've
> picked up on the SN podcast (which is well worth a listen, IMHO).
> I've never used the product, but at least the guy who wrote it seems
> to know what he's doing and make difficult technological topics
> accessible.
> 
> -tim
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
			sip:janina at asterisk.rednote.net
		Email:	janina at rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
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