On 2010 Jan 25, at 04:26, Jon Hardcastle wrote:

Hi guys can anyone recommend a tool for thrashing the b*ll*cks of a  
drive in  way that isn't destructive to the data?

I was thinking badblocks with -w but it is destructive and i dont  
want to do anything that will potentially lower the integrity of my  
array? (Even tho it is raid6 :) )

There must be some bonnie esk tool that will read/write every  
combination to every block but keep the data safe after to flush out  
any sector issues etc.

Here are a couple of utilities I've used in the past:

- seeker: How fast is your disk?

   <http://www.linuxinsight.com/how_fast_is_your_disk.html>

   "With a little bit of torturing, and some fun on the way, find out  
how fast your hard disk drive really is."

- thrash - hard disk stress tester with random seek speed statistics

   <http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~greg/thrash/>

   "thrash is intended to exercise a hard disk seek mechanism and  
perform a random seek speed benchmark. It is largely targeted at new  
harddisks that should be exercised to encourage early failure (i.e.  
assuming a bathtub curve for failures)."

Also, as mentioned in the first article, you can use hdparm to test  
sequential access.

I believe all of these utilities can be used read-only, but I can't  
remember for sure.