Verify

Verifying tests the integrity of an archive. It affirms that all of the archive's data is readable, undamaged, unaltered, and its structure is sound.

It is recommended that archives are periodically verified to ensure that no transient or permanent media failures have compromised your data and to ensure that all captured files are viable and ready to be recalled.

Verifying an archive Steps

Verify an archive by:

open the archive and choose Archive ➤ Verify from the menu (or toolbar).
create a verify action; run it or schedule it to run automatically.

Technical details Details

An archive is comprised of a series of small data records, accompanied by an entourage of auxiliary index files.

The verify process performs the following steps (not necessary in this order):

Read every data record in the archive. Verify that no records have been corrupted or overwritten.
Verify that all redundancy data is correct.
Read all unused space in the archive. Verify that the unused space is empty and has not be overwritten.
Make sure each record has a unique identifier.
Evaluate all references between records to ensure that every reference refers to a valid record of the correct type.
Cross reference the contents of volume and folder records with file records, and file records with data records, to ensure they form a valid structure.
Reconstruct all of the index information from the primary archive records. The reconstructed index data is then compared against the data stored in the index files; the two must be identical.

If any inconsistencies are discovered, the verify will log the problem and fail.