[gentoo-user] Re: OT: Fighting bit rot

[Grant Edwards]

On 2013-01-09, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Jan 2013 02:47:07 +0000 (UTC)

> The data on a medium can corrupt, and it can corrupt silently for a
> long time.

And I'm saying I've never seen that happen.

So you're saying that the data on a medium can corrupt without being
detected by the block encodings and CRCs used by the disk controller?

> At some point it may deteriorate to where it passes a cusp
> and then you will get your first visible sign

No, the first visible sign in the scenario you're describing would be
a read returning erroneous data.  

> - read failure. You did not see anything that happened prior as it
> was silent.

If a read successfully returns correct data, how is it "silent"?

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! Someone in DAYTON,
                                  at               Ohio is selling USED
                              gmail.com            CARPETS to a SERBO-CROATIAN