[K12OSN] RAID Question

[Robert Arkiletian]

On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 2:36 PM, Joseph Bishay <joseph.bishay at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> As per everyone's recommendation, I removed the fakeraid hardware and
> plugged the drives right into the motherboard and used the built-in
> Linux software RAID.  Everything seems to be working very well!  I
> appreciate everyone's recommendation on this issue.
>
> I have a follow-up question -- the RAID is made up of 2 refurbished
> drives we were able to obtain (cost issues).  I'd like to find a
> command / program that I can use to test them / stress them while they
> are still in their warranty period (90 days).  I've done some research
> and came across a lot of options: Bonnie++, badblocks, fsck, smartctl
> -t, etc etc.

I use badblocks to do a destructive test which flips each bit 101
then 010 then 111 then 000. This can take 24 hours. After that I test
the disk controller  by formatting them and then I grab a Big  iso
(5GB) copy it to each drive. Then take an MD5SUM of each iso (make
sure they are the same) Now copy each iso to the other drive at the
same time. So each drive has reads and writes simultaneously. Then
check the MD5SUM of each again. If it passes I then setup software
raid 1. You can use a live CD to do all this.

>
> I'm not sure what is best to use -- I guess I want something that will
> check to see if there are any existing current issues and something to
> put the drives under some tests to see if any issues arise.
>
> The other side of that question is: will the drives being in RAID
> affect these tests at all? Should I run the tests on the RAID array or
> should I dismantle the array, run the tests, then re-enable the array?
>
> Thank you!
> Joseph
>
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-- 
Robert Arkiletian
Eric Hamber Secondary, Vancouver, Canada