Tips & Tricks for validating hardware/os

[Stephane Bailliez <sbailliez(at)gmail(dot)com>]

Hi,

Out of curiosity, can anyone share his tips & tricks to validate a 
machine before labelling it as 'ready to use postgres - you probably 
won't trash my data today' ?
I'm looking for a way to stress test components especially kernel/disk 
to have confidence > 0 that I can use postgres on top of it.

Any secret trick is welcome (beside the memtest one :)

Thanks !

-- stephane