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Managing Disks - Certify, Verify, Initialize
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Among my closet of disks and various enclosures, I have an Elite Pro Dual containing two independent high-capacity 16TB disks for offsite backups. Since mounting the disks in the Elite Pro Dual, I think maybe at least a month ago or so one of the volumes didn't mount when connecting it to the computer (so I restarted the machine and all was well after that), but I don't remember an error. Then just 2 or 3 evenings ago, I connected the Dual and received an actual SoftRaid error on one of the disks. It was a "read" error and the disk wouldn't mount. I think my Mac may have also flashed a "this disk has become ejected" notice upon powering up the enclosure. In any event, I restarted the machine, my volumes all loaded and I didn't worry about it that much.
Since I had 24 hours to devote to the process, last night I began the process of verifying the entire disk, which is now complete. No errors.
My question is if there is any reason to ADDITIONALLY verify the volume itself , or does verifying the disk just as well as validating the volume? I can't certify the disk of course because it's packed to the brim with 16TB of data, but it's a redundant backup and has passed verification just fine.
I'm glad to have to software to keep an eye on this stuff but am still learning so any advice is appreciated. Why would one validate a volume as opposed to verifying the whole disk?
Thanks,
Sean
Posted : 14/09/2023 5:55 pm
A "verify disk" reads the disk, and confirms that the disk can be read across the entire surface.
A "Validate" reads the volume, calculates parity when available, and updates the parity when appropriate (not all volumes have parity data, like RAID 0 volumes). It also confirms the data can be read. (read errors would be reported)
A validate works on the volume, i.e, all disks are read. But validate only reads the parts of the disk encompassed by that volume.
A validate on a non RAID volume, is very similar to a verify disk.
A verify disk reads the raw disk, outside the file system. And you can verify just one disk. A verify goes faster than a validate. (outside the file system)
Verify is not a strenuous test, it is just reading the disk. that is why Certify is so powerful, it confirms the disk can be written to with complex data and read back.
This post was modified 3 years ago by SoftRAID Support
Posted : 14/09/2023 11:14 pm
