[Odal3]

Hi,

I'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations of how to best test new hard drives that will go into a NAS. I have been using Seagate's SeaTools for Windows in the past but wonder if there is anything better I should use.

Searching online there seems to be some mixed recommendations so wonder what (if any) process you use. Seem like the general trend is that the drives follow the bath-tub curve with failing either early or late. 

Running the Long generic test in Seatools takes forever. Been running it now for a few hours on a 8TB disc, and I don't think I have even hit 5% completion 

[Anonamemouse]

Just use them. there is no way to predict if or when they will fail. If you're lucky it will never die or blow within the warranty period.

[jtwrace]

I was in the same boat at one time.  After much searching, I came across a setup tutorial by someone who was much more experienced than me.  He said something which made total sense and is exactly what I did.  The bottom line was that you can do a quick test on the drives through the Synology GUI but that's it.  The hardcore test that you can do when new and every month actually wears the drive out in his opinion as it puts so much stress on the drive.  He said install it and do the quick smart test and that's it.  The drive will typically fail then or within the first few months anyway and that's why backups are so critical as you can't predict drive failure anyway.  Keep the whole NAS backed up and you'll be fine.  That's what I do now as I have 4 backups with one being offsite.   

[Doublej]

That's what RAID is for. Implement it and you won't have to worry about a drive failure ruining your day.

[Odal3]

Thanks for the input. Much appreciated. Just doing one of the quick tests and then using it has been my normal way of doing it. I was just curious if there was a better way.

I ended up cancelling the long teat after 26 hours since it had not even made it to the halfway point. Perhaps it was extra long since it was connected via USB.
Btw: This will be the backup drive.

[Odal3]

That's what RAID is for. Implement it and you won't have to worry about a drive failure ruining your day.

I thought about it when I first set it up a few years ago but at that time I ended up using the extra drives as backup offsite instead.

[ctviggen]

There's also Western Digital Data Lifeguard diagnostics.  I usually run my drive through that once when I get it, then that's it.  I use unraid.

[jpm]

I've found Crystal Disk Info to be very informative. When I last replaced a full set of NAS drives proactively, I checked each drive and posted an image of the results with the Ebay listing for the ones I sold.

While none of the drives individually or the array as a whole reported any problems from Synology tests or in logs, Cystal Disk Info did identify errors on a couple of drives which.

Crystal will require taking each drive and connecting it to a computer to run the tests, but the results come back very quickly (seconds) which suggested that the information it reported is logged but not reported by other utilities I'd tried, and that the testing itself is not stressful for the drive.

If your drives are ~5+ years old and you want peace of mind, it's worth a try.

https://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/index-e.html