Certify disks before use

When you certify a disk with the SoftRAID application, you are writing a pattern to every sector on the disk, reading the pattern back, and checking it. It is only after certifying a disk with SoftRAID before using it that you will know that the disk is truly reliable.

There are two periods of time when a disk is more likely to fail, when it is new and when it has been used for several years. If you certify all new disks before using them, you will be much less likely to have a new disk fail when you are already using it for a volume.