Tips & Tricks for validating hardware/os

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