One of my old housemates had a very organised data collection. One of his forms of catharsis was to go on a deleting spree. If he had a bad day, or an argument at work, or got pwned by fourteen year-olds in CS too much, he'd take it out on his meticulous data directory.

In unraid world, we preclear our disks before adding them to the pool. Not only does it zero the disk so it doesn't screw with parity, it also 'tests' it. Helps catch still-born, and early death drives. There are other tools to burn-in disks; I think the old spin-rite can be used for it too.