Hi,
I'm gonna build a MS WHS w/ a half dozen HDDs, and I see 2TB HDDs fairly cheap at Newegg & our local Fry's. They are on a moving palates several feet high. I have not purchased a HDD for quite a while (all comes w/ one pre-installed w/ new computers) and read horrible reviews about low cost Seagate drive reliability (eg click of death after a month). Someone told me the cheap Seagates are OEM rejects that do not past the muster of OEM testing and returned to Seagate for re-certifying & re-packaging to Fry's & Newegg at substantial discounts for retail sales.

I'm gonna use drive extender and directory backup on the finished setup, so all data will have two copies.

When I purchase several new SATA drive and connect to a PC in IDE mode, should I "fasterase" then scan, OR should I "erase" then scan. Or should it be the other way around. And what other steps should I take to verify it "mostly" a good drive?

I'm just wondering what steps most of you use to analyze a bunch of NEW HDD that has nothing on them, and perhaps return those "suspected" ones back to the store before the 30-day store warranty expires. They are Seagate (non-enterprise) drives w/ 5-year warranty and replacement is always refurbished w/ 90-day warranty, I've been told.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

What do you expect ? New drives seem to work, the problems come later
The less you spend, the crapper you get. Warranty is on the drive not on data inside. And get certain info, not internet BS. So said, if you want some certainty, look for enterprise drives or special series (many brands have), even if the cost is up to 50% higher than standard.

In the old days, enterprise drives had better coating, motors, sensors, etc... But now days, I've been told they just past more rigorous in house physical/acoustic tests compared to retail drives, less rigorous recovery attempts, also formatted less densely. I'm gonna buy 3 Seagates & 3 WDs so as no two copies of same data are written on the same brand drive.

I'm hoping there steps I can take in testing the new drives using free software, eg mhdd, victoria, etc... as to flag "potentially" troublesome drives before I write anything on them. btw, what's the difference between fasterase (using the drive's bios) & regular erase (much slower PIO erase). Which of these two would enable the drive's firmware to flag the bad areas better?

Would simply performing a "fasterase" & then a regular scan then look at the SMART values be sufficient?

NO.

NO??, that was SURE HELPFUL....

Anyhow, for those in similar shoes as me.. Although NOTHING is for CERTAIN in this world, except, DEATH & TAXES , in the end I did mostly several steps.. I did a hardcopy of the SMART values immediately after installed. I performed a fasterase & then a scan, then a hardcopy of the slow sectors & a hardcopy of the SMART values after the fasterase & scan. I then chose the ones with the best values. Two drives had multiple re-allocated sectors & a # of slow sectors, hence they were returned. The ones left, I kept. It's not foolproof, but gives me piece of mind & I'll also have all important data mirrored, backed up on an eternal HDD also, and archived on dvd-r disk as well.

Run verify test on HDDScan and look at the graph. If there are no peaks and no errors it should be fine.
There's no such thing as reliable drive. You have to live with it. Moreover, the crappier your drive you think is the more alert you are and it makes you backup more often. Backup is your best friend.

Thanx for the recommendation on using HDDScan... I'll check out the program.. Much appreciated!

# Head Flying Height: A downward trend in flying height will often presage a head crash.
# Number of Remapped Sectors: If the drive is remapping many sectors due to internally-detected errors, this can mean the drive is starting to go.
# ECC Use and Error Counts: The number of errors encountered by the drive, even if corrected internally, often signal problems developing with the drive. The trend is in some cases more important than the actual count.
# Spin-Up Time: Changes in spin-up time can reflect problems with the spindle motor.
# Temperature: Increases in drive temperature often signal spindle motor problems.
# Data Throughput: Reduction in the transfer rate of the drive can signal various internal problems.

Thanks and regards
Portable hard drives