PrePrep a spare drive?

[SPOinNS]

I've always thought it would be a good idea to have a spare HDD on hand for the inevitable failure of one of the 4TB WD Red's that fully populate my AS-204TE. Throw in a good boxing day sale and the need for a few odds 'n ends and a new spare is on it's way.

This raises a practical question. I would like to check the new drive for defects before I register it's warranty. In all likelihood the new drive will be kept in it's box until needed to replace a failed drive. I'd hate to find out at the last minute that the new drive has problems. Is it possible to run a Bad Block scan on the new drive using a HDD dock connected to the NAS'es USB port?

I currently run a short version SMART scan weekly and a Bad Block scan monthly. That schedule satisfies my worry threshold but I'd be interested in what others consider best practice for a 4 disk, RAID 5, home use NAS used primarily for media and backups from 3 computers.

This question is primarily about hardware practices and not really about backups for backups strategies. I think the FreeNAS folks call this 'preclearing' a drive meant as a spare.

Thanks, and Happy New Year to all!

[Antonios]

Man you can pre-clear or whatever the drive as much as you like. If it was mine, I would just stick it in a computer and use it for all sorts of normal operations like local backups and such for like a month or so.

BUT, If Murphy's law applies, then the day you're gonna actually need this drive to work in the NAS, it won't even spin up.

Just my 2c.