Stress Testing for new HDDs?

[user]

I have heard people mentioning that a HDD will fail either at the beginning or at the end of its life cycle, therefore a stress test should be done on all new HDDs before use.

1. Is it recommended to do a stress test for new HDDs before putting it to use in a NAS?
2. How can I do a stress test? Any software needed? How long will it take? Step by step and alternative methods are appreciated.
3. Can I do it on the NAS itself? This is because I do not own an adapter and power supply for a 3.5" HDD.
4. If #3 is possible, can it be done for the second and subsequent drives on the NAS itself while keeping its RAID configuration? Same reason because I do not own an adapter and power supply.

Thanks and appreciate all responses!

[BobS]

As you have probably already discovered, the NAS will pretty much do the testing when you first install the drives. In my case, I installed 4 new 8TB drives and it took 44 hours to perform the "optimization" and another 11 hours of "Data Scrubbing" even though I had no personal files on it. I had asked Rob about these and the "optimization" is the initialization process where it checks every bit location on the drives.So while there are other ways of checking these drives before you install them, I doubt you would gain any advantage over letting the NAS perform the testing. When you get all done with the initial setup you can run the Extended SMART test and then schedule it to run the extended test every month to keep tabs. You didn't state the model or number/size of the hard drives so your mileage will vary...BobS

[lisamartin]

It's a good idea to stress test new HDDs before using them in a NAS. You can use tools like CrystalDiskMark or HD Tune. Yes, you can test directly on the NAS, and it’s usually safe for additional drives in RAID.