I'm soon getting a new 5 bay DAS enclosure to set up a RAID 6 configuration on. (Connecting to my PC through a SCSI SAS interface)
I'm gonna buy 5 brand new SATA II 3Gbps HDD's to put in this DAS box, but I'd like to scan all 5 new HDD's for bad sectors before I configure the RAID array.
What is the best way to make sure these new & unformatted HDD's are free of bad sectors & otherwise in good functional condition without putting them into my pc tower? - Is there a way to test them in the DAS box? - Or is there some sort of device I can use to attatch them to my main pc tower through a USB port to scan them that way?
Download UBCD. Depending on the drive manufacture you will have the utilities for scanning and attempting recovery of bad sectors. For Seagate HDDs it will be SeaTools DOS.
Where would I connect the new HDDs to scan them though?... I mean, is there a way to do it in the SANS Digital Mobile Raid DAS box before (or after) I actually configure the RAID 6 array?
Or should I mabye buy an external HDD enclosure & hook the HDDs up one-at-a-time to my PC to scan them that way? (Would the Ultimate Boot Disc be able to recognize the new unformatted HDD through an external USB or eSATA port?)
So you guys are basically saying that if I go the External HDD enclosure route I'll be able to scan the entire disk for bad sectors like I want to, but if I hook the HDDs up to my mobo, then I'll be able to do even more stuff?
What extra options would be available if I go the mobo hookup route?
Will those extra options be important to me if I just want to verify that the HDDs are in perfect working order? (or would a simple bad sector check be sufficient...)
Extra options would be viewing Firmware/flshing firmware, SMART data,etc. 99.9% of the time bad sector scan would work. Also ~90-95% of the new drivers are good.
