1158 - Data verification

While the Integrity Check feature is a reliable way of checking the integrity of your backup account on the StorageServer and MirrorServer, discovering that something is wrong while you're already restoring data may be too late. Our data verification feature is a convenient way to regularly read all the data for each of your accounts, checking that all the files are present and intact.

The process is quite similar to a read-only standard Integrity Check, but without the time-consuming initial file scan. Another benefit is that data verification can be cancelled from the Console at any time to ease the load on the disk while rollups or restores are running. In addition, the task then resumes from the point where it was cancelled instead of starting again from the beginning. 

The data verification process can be automated and customised to your needs by configuring its frequency and what action should follow a verification failure. To do this, open the StorageServer’s settings.xml file (default location C:\ProgramData\Attix5 Pro\SS_Service) and set your preferences. 

Managing data verification

• From v19.11, the feature is enabled by default
• To disable the feature, open the settings.xml file for the applicable StorageServer (default location C:\ProgramData\Redstor Backup Pro\SS_Service) and set AutomatedDataVerification to "false". Save the file.

Note: You can also enable/disable data verification via API.

Go to https://<storageserver>:port/api/system/settings and log in as a Storage Platform admin.

Use https://<storageserver>:port/api/system/settings/AutomatedDataVerification=true 

e.g. https://192.168.23.25:8443/api/system/settings?AutomatedDataVerification=true

The following entry will be seen in the settings.xml file:

<AutomatedDataVerification choices="True,False" default="False">True</AutomatedDataVerification>

• To set the period to wait before running another data verification task after a verification task has completed without errors, set DataVerificationFrequencyDays (default is 30 days).
• To set data verification to continue running on finding an error, set DataVerificationRunToCompletion to "True". If set to "False" (default), the data verification task will exit as soon as the first error is found.
• To set what action should be taken on a verification error, set DataVerificationFailureAction to "None", "QuickIntegritycheck", "StandardIntegritycheck" or "FullIntegritycheck" (default is QuickIntegritycheck). Set to "None" to allow the Storage Platform administrator to investigate before manually enabling the Integrity Check.
• To set how long the resume information will remain usable in the case where the data verification task was terminated to give priority to other tasks (e.g. roll-up), set DataVerificationResumeMaxHours (default is 24 hours).
• To monitor the issues picked up by data verification, look for the DataVerification report under Other in the Console's Reports view.

This report will show all the accounts that have exhibited issues in the last two months, such as in this example:

(Blue = SS, Yellow = MS)

The first part of each account's GUID is a link to that account's Integrity Check History report. Once the Integrity Check has fixed all the issues on the account and the data verification task has had a clean run, the account will no longer show up in the DataVerification report.

Note: It's good practice to schedule this report daily, so as to be informed about any issues as soon as they appear.