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I just received my first 1tb drive which I plan to store tv shows and movies on. I would like to "burn in" or test the drive thoroughly before transferring all my shows to it. What is the best method?
Thanks
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As a personal rule, I always purchase drives in pairs. One for the data, one for the backup. Just something to think about.
I'd imagine that the Disk Utility tool that writes ones/zeros over the entire drive for several hours/days would probably do what you're looking for.
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Disk utility zero all sectors does a thorough job testing the drive. there might be more thorough methods but they'll get arcane.
unfortunately i don't think a test like this does much to protect you from a failed drive.
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Zeroing the drive may map out bad sectors, but is not a "burn in."
Your best option is to buy a second drive (and maybe a third...and burn some optical discs) as a backup if you're committing important files to it.
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Thanks for the info on disk utility, I'll give that a shot.
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I use Integrity in the Intech Speed Tools Test Suite to burn in hard drives.
http://www.speedtools.com/TestSuite.html
Affordable!
Cheers!
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I know what it is to "burn-in" a monitor (bad thing) and speakers/headphones (good thing).
But burning in an HD? What would such a thing accomplish?
Zeroing an HD is not burning it in, though it should map out bad sectors (assuming there aren't a ton of them) and that a good thing too.
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I think that he just wants to stress-test the drive before committing 1TB of video files to the drive. Sudden drive failure is too common for me to trust everything to one drive.
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I snapped up the integrity utility, I'll do both tests, really give the drive a workout! Thanks.