Bare minimum is dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX before any drive is put into use while monitoring with smartctl followed by a file system and large file (50% of drive size) read and hashing.

Same thing with RAM, who doesn't stress test it with memtest before using it?

Recently I purchased a bunch of WD Red drives and all six failed within 37 hours of first spin up. Dead Red's with a 37 hours MTBF.

I hadn't heard of this, I'm sure I can find a use for this as well. Thanks for sharing.

I logged in for the first time in several years to reply to this. I completely agree and this is the enthusiasm that we need to keep. I was a late adopter of the new handheld computers because I loved my simple candybar style unbreakable phone that always worked.

Sometimes I miss the tactile sensations of dialing a number on a rotary or the push buttons of an old Bell Labs and instead I now say "Call [Blah]" instead of looking it up in a phone book and feeling the paper.

But, we're living in the future now and that is awesome. Hold on to the past but embrace the future otherwise you'll be left behind.

Really? On my Apple machine CTRL + Click performs as right click would.

(Sorry for killing the joke, but at Slashdot we go for accuracy before humor, right?)

All of this is fine and dandy, but they still don't tell us what the coordinates of Earth are. What good will this do us if we are abducted and need to get home?

As a commenter on Technology Review said, isn't this the same concept as NASA put on Pioneer F?