I’m in the process of putting together a NAS for home use and recently picked up a couple WD HGST HUH7212ALE604 factory recertified (0 hours) drives to start with. Through my research, I’ve read in many places that it’s a wise idea to run smart long test and/or badblocks as an initial burn-in.
I understand that because badblocks was not originally intended for modern HDD’s, it’s best practice to adjust the block size (-b 4096) to match the HDD. My confusion comes into play here:
If these drives are showing Logical Size = 512 and Physical Size = 4096, am I only concerned with the Physical Size? If I was to use a block size (say -b 8192) that was not the same as the HDD, would that harm the drive in anyway? Does badblocks have the capability to unintentionally reformat a drive?
With all of that said, is badblocks still worth it in 2025? I appreciate any and all advice!