THDD - Correction - (Test HDD)
Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 10:24 pm
Prior to its current rebuild Superpuppy 3 had a 20 Gig (7200) Maxtor Diamond Max boot drive, and 2 x WD 40 Gig (7200) storage drives. During the current rebuild the WDs got replaced w/ 2 x Maxtor 80 Gig (7200) Diamond Max storage drives. There is a reason for this.
I have always generally prefered WD drives because I have heard they were faster than others. In my collection of HDDs I have a number of Maxtor slimlines, (single platter drives), (1 x 10 Gig 7200, 1 x 20 Gig 7200, 2x 30 Gig 7200 & 1 x 40 Gig 7200), which I bought because I thought they would run cooler because of enhanced airflow in the cramped confines of ATs; but I have heard since I bought them, that they are not very reliable. I also have 5 x WD 40 Gig (7200)s and 1 x WD 80 Gig (7200). Seagates, on the other hand, I have not had many of. Superpuppy 1 has 3 x 8 Gig Seagates in it; but the only other Seagate I have ever briefly owned was a 60 Gig (7200) Barracuda that I bought used.
That brings me to the point of this post. That Seagate would pass MS Scandisks surface check w/ no problems; but when I checked it w/ THDD another picture arose. THDD is a disk checking utility that I have which can be downloaded from somewhere if you check the net looking for it.
What it can do follows :
1) Perform a surface scan on an 80 Gig drive in about 15 minutes.
2) Allows you to start the scan from any point on the drive.
3) Monitor the drives readspeed as it is checking the drive, giving a continous readout in kb per second of the part of the drive it is currently checking. (The 60 Gig Seagate had wildly fluctuating readspeed)
4) Remap the drive to exclude up to 200 bad sectors so they won't even appear running scandisk.
5) Allows you to manually specify any given sector as being bad. i.e. if there is a bad sector, you can, if you choose, specify that the two sectors on either side of the bad one be excluded from the drive map, thereby avoiding having your data stored in questionable sectors.
6) Show you a graph of the read speed of the entire drive, wherein a good drive will show up as a flat green line on a blue background; and damaged sectors will show as spikes upwards from the flat line, denoting increased readtime for that part of the drive. This graph also has a limit to how high the spikes can go before they run off the blue background. Off the blue background equals bad sector as opposed to just damaged.
EDIT : Forgot to mention THDD also lets you mess with the FAT tables and the MBR, neither of which I have had the nerve to do which is why I forgot that part. One of these days I'll try it on an old 100MB drive to see what you can do.
The 60 Gig Seagate had spikes almost to the top of the graph throughout the whole front third of the drive. I took it back to the store where I bought it along w/ my THDD disk and got them to run the test there in the store. They took the drive back and I got my money back.
Now this brings me to the point , "Why Maxtor Diamond Max"? Superpuppy 3, like I said, has a 20 Gig (7200) Diamond Max boot drive. When I was working out my WPCredit tweaks, (See WPCredit as applied to a DFI K6BV3+/66), Superpuppy 3 was my "Guinea Pig". I must have hard crashed the machine a couple of hundred times, and yet THDD says my 20 Gig Diamond Max is still in "Perfect Condition" The graph is still perfectly flat!! They may not be the fastest drives out there; but they are darn near indestructable. (Which is more than I can say for my WDs.)
Thought I'd pass all that along.
I have always generally prefered WD drives because I have heard they were faster than others. In my collection of HDDs I have a number of Maxtor slimlines, (single platter drives), (1 x 10 Gig 7200, 1 x 20 Gig 7200, 2x 30 Gig 7200 & 1 x 40 Gig 7200), which I bought because I thought they would run cooler because of enhanced airflow in the cramped confines of ATs; but I have heard since I bought them, that they are not very reliable. I also have 5 x WD 40 Gig (7200)s and 1 x WD 80 Gig (7200). Seagates, on the other hand, I have not had many of. Superpuppy 1 has 3 x 8 Gig Seagates in it; but the only other Seagate I have ever briefly owned was a 60 Gig (7200) Barracuda that I bought used.
That brings me to the point of this post. That Seagate would pass MS Scandisks surface check w/ no problems; but when I checked it w/ THDD another picture arose. THDD is a disk checking utility that I have which can be downloaded from somewhere if you check the net looking for it.
What it can do follows :
1) Perform a surface scan on an 80 Gig drive in about 15 minutes.
2) Allows you to start the scan from any point on the drive.
3) Monitor the drives readspeed as it is checking the drive, giving a continous readout in kb per second of the part of the drive it is currently checking. (The 60 Gig Seagate had wildly fluctuating readspeed)
4) Remap the drive to exclude up to 200 bad sectors so they won't even appear running scandisk.
5) Allows you to manually specify any given sector as being bad. i.e. if there is a bad sector, you can, if you choose, specify that the two sectors on either side of the bad one be excluded from the drive map, thereby avoiding having your data stored in questionable sectors.
6) Show you a graph of the read speed of the entire drive, wherein a good drive will show up as a flat green line on a blue background; and damaged sectors will show as spikes upwards from the flat line, denoting increased readtime for that part of the drive. This graph also has a limit to how high the spikes can go before they run off the blue background. Off the blue background equals bad sector as opposed to just damaged.
EDIT : Forgot to mention THDD also lets you mess with the FAT tables and the MBR, neither of which I have had the nerve to do which is why I forgot that part. One of these days I'll try it on an old 100MB drive to see what you can do.
The 60 Gig Seagate had spikes almost to the top of the graph throughout the whole front third of the drive. I took it back to the store where I bought it along w/ my THDD disk and got them to run the test there in the store. They took the drive back and I got my money back.
Now this brings me to the point , "Why Maxtor Diamond Max"? Superpuppy 3, like I said, has a 20 Gig (7200) Diamond Max boot drive. When I was working out my WPCredit tweaks, (See WPCredit as applied to a DFI K6BV3+/66), Superpuppy 3 was my "Guinea Pig". I must have hard crashed the machine a couple of hundred times, and yet THDD says my 20 Gig Diamond Max is still in "Perfect Condition" The graph is still perfectly flat!! They may not be the fastest drives out there; but they are darn near indestructable. (Which is more than I can say for my WDs.)
Thought I'd pass all that along.