[plug] Server stress test, RAID health monitoring

[Craig Ringer]

On Sat, 2005-06-11 at 17:53 +0800, Matthew Lambie wrote:
> I have received three new servers for work and I'm installing the OS
> over the weekend. We're using Ubuntu on all the machines, and they all
> have SATA RAID configurations. I love the smell of new hardware :)
> 
> 1 - Can anyone recommend a good way/application to really hammer the
> processor, memory and disk? In the past I've compiled kernel after
> kernel in a loop but there must be a suite of tools people use to "burn
> in" new machines. If the disk is going to die, it will in the first few
> days, so I'd like to thump it now and replace it before it goes into the
> racks next week.
> 
> 2 - What do people use to monitor the health of RAID arrays?

Depends on the RAID hardware. Personally, I use 3DM, the monitor daemon
of the 3ware RAID hardware my servers are equipped with. I supplement
that with checks run by smartd.

Smartd, from smartmontools, is certainly a good starting point.

-- 
Craig Ringer