Validating the data on the array?

[Raident]

One of my disks just failed. The replacement drive is currently being precleared as I type, but one random thing that just popped in my mind as I wait is that in the many years of using the array, I've run many parity checks but never actually checked the data itself.

 

I do have backups of the data, but those only go back a year so if something happened to an old file prior to 2020 I wouldn't be able to tell by comparing with the backup. On the other hand, I could theoretically get fresh copies (the vast majority of the files on my array were originally downloaded off the internet) to check with, but that would be... very labor-intensive, not to mention tedious, and I'm sure there's a number of files/providers that have since gone offline over the years.

 

Thus, I figure it wouldn't hurt to ask the community if anyone has better ideas?

[JorgeB]

You either had to have previously created checksums or be using btrfs.