[Digikam-users] backup and data integrity

[Arnd Baecker]

On Thu, 17 Jan 2008, David Edmondson wrote:

> We're wandering off topic a little here...

;-)

> * arnd.baecker at web.de [2008-01-17 09:29:59]
> > Still, how would ZFS allow to check the integrity of backuped files
> > in comparison with those on the master hard-disk?
>
> >From the "above the filesystem" view point ZFS doesn't provide
> anything special here. You can use fingerprinting, checksums, etc.
>
> The benefit of ZFS is that you can create a filesystem that has
> redundant storage and ZFS ensures the validity of the data in each
> copy that it keeps (using checksums).
>
> In essence, with ZFS you don't worry about the validity of the data at
> the application layer, the filesystem does it for you.

So ZFS sounds really good!

Now (trying to get back to the main topic):

Would some checksum system, integrated into digikam, be useful,
in view of ensuring data integrity for backups?
I think it wouldn't be too difficult to implement something like
this (I briefly discussed with Marcel on the IRC and
with digikam >=0.10 such additions to the database will be easy).
Note that it might come with a bit of a speed penalty when
images/metadata get changed; however, this could be made
configurable.

Any further ideas/opinions?

Best, Arnd