Jude DaShiell wrote: > Does any optimal formula exist based on hard drive size which minimizes > time needed for checking and blanking hard drives in connection with the > block size value?
If the disk firmware offers it, a SMART long read/verify test should be close to optimal. Consult smartctl and the disk manufacturer for details. For conventional spinning hard disks, the optimal write size would be a complete cylinder at a time. That varies across the radius of the disk, and may not be made available to the OS. In lieue of knowing that, writes which are reasonable integer multiples of the sector size are very good. 1 MB is probably good for most drives. For SMR spinning disks,the optimal write size is one complete write zone. I've heard that this is standardizing at 256MB, but I would want to confirm with the manufacturer. There are a lot of interactions with PMR caches. For SSD, writing wears out the storage mechanism. A write-all test won't test reliability; flaws will be detected and remapped without letting the host know. -dsr-