DISK-FILLTEST(1)

✨ DISK-FILLTEST ✨

okay bestie, so this is disk-filltest from the General Commands Manual — she's a simple tool that detects bad disks by filling them with random data 🎀 and honestly? she's iconic for it.

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

disk-filltest [-C dir] [-f files] [-N] [-r] [-R repeats] [-s seed] [-S
size] [-u] [-U]

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so real talk. the number of hard disks produced in the last five years is huge. and of course, that's the same number of hard disks that will most probably fail in the next five years, possibly with catastrophic consequences for the particular user or business 😭. not to be dramatic but like. yeah.

the simple tool disk-filltest can help — together with S.M.A.R.T. monitoring — to check disks periodically and thus be forewarned about coming failures. the vibe check, if you will. and the function of disk-filltest is simple:

• Write files random-######## to the current directory until the disk is full.
• Read the files again and verify the pseudo-random sequence written.
• Any write or read error will be reported, either by the operating system or by checking the pseudo-random sequence.
• Optionally, delete the random files after a successful run.

the method is simple and effective 🫶 however, it of course does not verify other files on the disk. that is a different task, which can be solved efficiently, for example, using digup (a Digest Updating Tool) (https://panthema.net/2009/digup/). different girl, different job 💅

another useful side-function of disk-filltest is to measure read/write speed while filling the disk 🔥 slow speeds may also indicate a future failure, or just bad disk controlling. no cap.

see https://panthema.net/2013/disk-filltest/ for more information.

✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -C dir — change into given directory before starting work. like, get in, bestie 💜
• -f files — only write this number of 1 GiB sized files.
• -N — skip verification of files, e.g. for wiping a disk. just yeet the data, no double-checking 🙈
• -r — only verify existing data files with given random seed.
• -R repeat — repeat fill/test/wipe steps given number of times. the random seed is not changed between repetitions.
• -s seed — use random seed to write or verify data files.
• -S size — size of each random file in MiB (default: 1024).
• -u — remove files after successful test. she did her job, she's leaving 🌈
• -U — immediately remove files, write and verify via file handles.

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Written by Timo Bingmann 🎀

💀 SEE ALSO 💀

dd(1), digup(1), fio(1)

k bye bestie, go check your disks, iykyk 💖✨

this page came from the General Commands Manual and is dated 2019-10-21 — slay, periodt 🦋