I'm not aware of any tools that can 100% check for corruption inside the
mp3/flac/whatever files - if the tags got deleted somehow on the 'live'
disk then you could have a perfectly valid and readable but damaged
file.

erland's suggestion of using md5s should work well. The problem for me
comes when 'updating' the backup as I tend to make quite a few changes
such as tidying capitalisation of tags, adding album art, applying
replaygain, etc. - the difficulty is knowing whether I'm about to
overwrite my uncorrupted backup file with an updated corrupted one.

I happen to use syncback (freeware version) too - one of the things I
like about it is the preview of changes it is about to make after doing
the comparison of the master to the backup drive. I use the 'slower but
more reliable' file comparison mode (under 'compare options' in the
earlier version I use) and then carefully check the preview list.  This
generates and compares hashes for the source and backup files, and so
should (a) check all files are readable and (b) detect any differences.
If you review the differences carefully for any unexpected changes it
could be a fairly safe scheme. 

As well as having good backups, it's obviously better to try to avoid
the HDD failures in the first place.  If you haven't already, I suggest
you make sure all the HDDs are cooled as much as possible as heat can
lead to premature failure. This can be a bigger problem for external
drives.


-- 
Wonko
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wonko's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9070
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=32163

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