Unix Utility to Constantly Read and Write Disk to Kill Clicking Drive?

Question

One of my hard drives is slowing down and makes intermittent clicking noises. I'm pretty sure it's about to die and have backed up all it's contents. Is there some hard drive stressing utility or software that I can use on it to accelerate its death so that I can send it in for warranty repair?

If not, any ideas to write such a script/program? I guess I can write a program that will just write contents from /dev/random until disk is full, then erase and repeat.

Answer 1

I'd recommend you run shred on it, with a very large number of iterations - this should constantly fill the drive with random data. else, run dd on a loop on the disk for the same effect.

Answer 2

Fill your drive to the brink with stuff and then use one of the paranoid disk wiping tools that make several passes to delete stuff and then fill them with with random data.
Keep doing this and you might bring the disk nearer to its death .

Also i would recommend exposing it to higher temperature than normal.
You could also try shrinking and expanding you partitions , and formatting the drive over and over again.

But remember temperature is the key factor.

Answer 3

It's a less technical option, but you could try dropping it from small heights (so as not to leave dents in it) or tilting/shocking it while it's running.

Edit: Another idea that I've just thought of is to use the hdparm utility (or equivalent) to repeatedly spin the disk up and down. That's where most of the wear and tear will occur.