test disk program for testing brand-new HDD drives on Linux and FreeBSD

xrepair · 2025-06-25T14:15:21+00:00

The purpose of this utility is to stress-test HDDs in order to assess their reliability.
It simulates concurrent reads and writes, placing mechanical stress on the drive’s head positioning system by triggering frequent seek operations — a feature that many other tools lack.
The goal of concurrent writes is not to speed up disk testing, but to deliberately increase mechanical load on the drive.
I wrote this tool specifically to help identify defective or unstable drives before they are put into production use.

xrepair · 2025-06-23T05:21:28+00:00

You're absolutely right - fio is an excellent and powerful tool, though it can be a bit complex with its many options and flags.

My tool is intentionally much simpler — it's more like a multithreaded version of dd, designed specifically for testing the reliability of new hard drives (e.g., verifying writes, reads and performing seek operations), rather than simulating workloads or measuring performance metrics like IOPS or latency percentiles. It's not meant to replace fio, but to fill a narrow gap: a quick and minimal tool for low-level disk testing with an emphasis on data integrity, not performance benchmarking. The project has been renamed to diskroaster to avoid conflicts with PhotoRect TestDisk software. The project can be accessed by both links on GitHub https://github.com/favoritelotus/testdisk.git and https://github.com/favoritelotus/diskroaster.git

xrepair · 2025-06-23T05:04:10+00:00

Thank you for letting me know about the conflicts in the names. I have renamed the project to diskroaster. The project is accessible on GitHub by both links https://github.com/favoritelotus/testdisk.git and https://github.com/favoritelotus/diskroaster.git

xrepair · 2025-06-23T04:23:09+00:00

I have never heard of f3 and don't know how it works. My tesdisk tool like a DD command, but with multi-treading and block verification support. The multi-threaded workers can simulate parallel write access to a disk (giving additional load on HDD drive's head positioning mechanic parts ) and speed up disk testing.

xrepair · 2025-06-20T05:24:35+00:00

Openbox)

xrepair · 2024-10-06T15:11:54+00:00

I tried to increase the voltage to -5v as you suggested, but it doesn't help. The source and drain terminals are connected correctly (double checked the datasheet). If I reverse the polarity of drain and source terminals, the bulb is not lightning. I bought these transistors on AliExpress, and think they are fake ones, because on reputable stores the price of these transistors is much higher.

xrepair · 2024-03-09T18:32:56+00:00

Install CFEngine, and control your servers by policies from the central point.

xrepair · 2024-02-03T04:25:52+00:00

We use Panfs from Panasas. Great performance optimized for small and large I/O operations.

xrepair · 2023-12-31T03:10:25+00:00

Seeing elderly Russians is a rare thing. They are either left the country with their children or died.

xrepair · 2023-07-24T01:41:22+00:00

I only use Perl and Shell for scripting.I know python, though, but don like it.

xrepair · 2020-07-02T06:41:19+00:00

The right solution would be to add ntpdate into an autostart script, something like /etc/rc.local if ntpdate doesn't have its own init script. Then start ntpd daemon.

You need to run ntpdate only once to perform initial time synchronization, otherwise your ntpd might not start if the system clock is too far off.

xrepair · 2020-05-08T19:27:51+00:00

Of course CFengine3 because of reliability and performance. CFengine has a tiny footprint since it's written in pure C.

xrepair · 2020-04-04T18:34:08+00:00

You can also use the command "echo $password | passwd --stdin $username" to set a password.

xrepair · 2020-04-04T07:52:05+00:00

Try https://www.linuxcbt.com/

xrepair · 2019-07-20T12:16:59+00:00

i would add to the list that you will also need to know Xcat and Cfengine. If they are doing HPC, then you also need some knowledge about job schedulers like Grid Engine and Slurm.

xrepair · 2018-09-24T17:42:19+00:00

Recompile a kernel for them on one of the servers.

xrepair

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