disktest

disktest - Hard Disk (HDD), Solid State Disk (SSD), USB Stick, Memory Card (e.g. SD-Card) tester
================================================================================================

`https://bues.ch/h/disktest `_

Disktest is a tool to check Hard Disks, Solid State Disks, USB sticks, SD cards or similar storage media for errors.

It does so by writing a pseudo random sequence to the device and then reading it back and verifying it to the expected pseudo random sequence.

This tool can be used to:

* Check disks for hardware errors (e.g. platter errors, Flash errors, etc...).
* Overwrite storage media with a cryptographically strong pseudo random stream. This can either be used to delete existing data on the disk, or to prepare the disk for encryption.
* Test for tampered media that pretend to have more storage area than they physically actually have. Sometimes such media are sold by fraudulent sellers for cheap prices.
* ... probably lots of other tasks.

The random number stream is a concatenation of hashes generated by the following algorithm:
::

S = PBKDF2(SEED | THREAD_ID)
HASH_DATA = SHA512(S | PREVIOUS_HASH_DATA | MONOTONIC_INC_COUNTER)

If more than one thread is used, then each thread generates such a hash stream, which are then interleaved in a regular
pattern.

The algorithm can also be switched to a CRC based algorithm, that is much faster, but *not* cryptographically secure. However CRC is sufficient to find physical disk errors. Disktest defaults to the secure SHA512 based algorithm.


Dependencies
============

* `Rust (edition 2018) `_ or later.
* Crate dependencies will automatically be downloaded by cargo.


Running without installing
==========================

Build and run disktest in place without installing it:

.. code:: sh

cargo run --release -- DISKTEST_OPTIONS_HERE

See below for a description of the available `disktest` options.


Installing
==========

Build disktest and install it to `$HOME/.cargo/bin`:

.. code:: sh

cargo install --path .


Disktest command line options
=============================

Please run either of the following commands to show more information about the available command line options.

.. code:: sh

cargo run --release -- --help
cargo run --release -- -h
disktest --help
disktest -h

Speed
=====

The following table shows some example speed measurements of disktest in various operation mode on different hardware.

These speed tests don't write to an actual disk, but only to the `/dev/null` device, which is a device that does nothing. So these speed test results do not include the speed limits of any actual disk hardware.

=============================== ========= ======================================= =================
Command Algorithm Hardware Data rate written
=============================== ========= ======================================= =================
disktest -j6 -w /dev/null SHA512 AMD Phenom II X6 1090T; 6 cores 3.2 GHz 675 MiB/s
disktest -j6 -ACRC -w /dev/null CRC AMD Phenom II X6 1090T; 6 cores 3.2 GHz 4.6 GiB/s
disktest -j4 -w /dev/null SHA512 Intel i5-3320M; 2+2 cores 2.6 GHz 250 MiB/s
disktest -j4 -ACRC -w /dev/null CRC Intel i5-3320M; 2+2 cores 2.6 GHz 3.4 GiB/s
disktest -j4 -w /dev/null SHA512 Raspberry Pi 4; 4 cores 1.5 GHz 75 MiB/s
disktest -j4 -ACRC -w /dev/null CRC Raspberry Pi 4; 4 cores 1.5 GHz 605 MiB/s
=============================== ========= ======================================= =================

The read data rates are similar, because the algorithm used is exactly the same.

Note: The default rust compiler shipped with Raspberry Pi OS is too old to compile Disktest. A newer Rust compiler must be used on Raspberry Pi.


License
=======

Copyright (c) 2020 Michael Buesch

Licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2, or (at your option) any later version.