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Microsoft Redesigns chkdsk For Windows 8, Improves NTFS Health Model
MojoKid writes "Microsoft can't do anything to magically make hard drives stop failing when parts go bad, but Redmond is rolling out a new NTFS health model for Windows 8 with a redesigned chkdsk tool for disk corruption detection and fixing. In past versions of the chkdsk and NTFS health model, the file system volume was either deemed healthy or not healthy. In Windows 8, Microsoft is changing things up. Rather than hours of downtime, Windows 8 splits the process into phases that include 'Detect Corruption,' 'Online Self-Healing,' 'Online Verification,' 'Online Identification & Logging,' and 'Precise & Rapid Correction.'"
sane precautions with your data such as RAID and/or backing up your information
RAID and backing up should never be considered an "OR".
.. "RAID is not a backup strategy".
Repeat after me
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"Online" as in "don't dismount the disk while we fix it, so you can continue to use it".
here the highlight.
if disk.mbr.has_grub
for part in disc.partitions
if part.type.not_ours
chair.throw() # dammit... let's do something about it
part.raw_write(offset=random(1,part.size),data=random(1,255)) # voila'
end if
end for
end if
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Given the other phase names, I surprised the marketing department didn't call this "Detect Awesomeness!".
chkdsk is a standalone app. Can I use v8 on my v7 OS?
I was curious as to why MS is continuing on with NTFS, surely there must be something newer coming out of their R&D labs. So a quick google turned up this from the same blog, but earlier this year: building the next generation file system for windows refs
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Right up until your primary gets some corruption and proceeds to mirror it to the other.
It seems like Microsoft is really going out of it's way to innovate in Windows 8. I just hope both Apple and Linux developers would add something similar, as it's hard drive failure can lead to huge problems. Yes, you can use RAID or something, but that will bring costs significantly up. It's better to see these things before failure actually happens.
Rather than take sane precautions with your data such as RAID and/or backing up your information, you want a warning 1 minute before your drive fails?
1 minute should be more than enough for anybody.
Just delete an important file or directory on a RAID1 and see how much that "backup" protected you. Or install a virus. Or have data corruption on a disk.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
En garde!!!
Considering that the current chkdsk is actually capable of causing massive logical damage , Microsoft has a LONG way to go to make it function as intended.
You mean it's suspected of causing additional damage in a couple of comments.
It's very possible that there are long standing bugs. It's also possible that it just tried very hard on a hopelessly borked drive and failed.
Seriously. Your strategy puts at risk all the writes during that rebuild process.
That only "backs up" against drive failure. What happens if something gets deleted? What happens if a process goes mad and scribbles all over something important? What if someone breaks in?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
RAM is cheap. Why not use it?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
If there is one thing you can count on in the world, it's someone screaming "RAID is not a backup!" at the top of their lungs in any conversation dealing with RAID.
Yes, thank you. We get it. RAID does not protect against deleted files, etc. You can go back to shouting other contrarian favorites in other threads.
In the mean time, if and when one of the drives in my RAID-1 mirror fails, I'll be sure to throw its working partner straight into the garbage can. I certainly wouldn't use it to restore my entire filesystem that would have otherwise been obliterated.
I don't know about you, but I'm constantly deleting files by accident, and getting personal data destroying viruses (via a time machine from the 90s) where as my drives never, ever fail.
Well i'd say it depends on WHAT data is being backed up via RAID 1. For example if its something that can be replaced but would be a PITA, like say media files? Then as long as the odds of them doing something really stupid are low then i'd say the risks are low.
The big thing I've found is it is VERY important to have offline discs images of the OS because that is the area one will have to worry about malware, bad patches, etc and that will not be protected in any way with RAID since whatever went wrong with the first will be simply copied before you know what is happening. for my customers i recommend a USB HDD for OS images and any important files because 1.-it is easy to take offsite and replace with another. 2.-It is cheap enough that having more than one isn't cost prohibitive, and 3.-if one has more than one and rotate them even if a bug were to somehow get in and infect both the system and the USB drive attached it would still leave them the offsite backup to restore from.
But as long as one has offline backups as well for critical files then i see no harm in having RAID 1 as simply another layer of defense. Of course i would recommend something like HDDTune to check the SMART to keep an eye on the drives since a good SMART tool will often let you know long before it is noticeable that there is something wrong with a drive. i personally like to install Kel's CPL Bonus Pack on a system as it gives me all the tools I could need right from the control panel, like HDDTune, CPU and GPU-Z,HW monitor, etc. oh a bit of advice, if one wishes to use kel's CPL Bonus in Vista or 7 remember to run as admin when installing.
So while I wouldn't recommend RAID 1 as any kind of backup strategy by itself i see no problem in using it as part of a defense in depth strategy along with offline and offsite backups.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
If anyone wants an example of why RAID should always have a backup solution and not just and/or solution. Please check http://dslreports.com/ , as they just recovered from a powerloss at nac.net which took their entire array system with it, and fudged 2 years worth of data, which had to be sent off for recovery. That was on April16th, the site is just starting to come back up in the last two days.
Some info here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kll86bDn_MgWoo6Ja7oHo_yvI0SCqggEvNWwPWIcrHY/edit?pli=1
Om, nomnomnom...
Because there is basically no point to it. The point of indexing is that rotational media has substantial access time penalties for fetching various info from random locations on the drive. By indexing it, you place all that metadata in one place so you can get a sequential read.
But with an SSD, there is not a substantial difference between random and sequential reads, and no significant penalty, so the indexing is not terribly useful. Additionally, indexing means more writes as well as increased background reads, which not only impacts performance (for little gain) but also wears out the drive.
Ditto for defragmenting; in fact defragging and indexing attack the same core problem, but from different angles, which is why neither is necessary on an SSD.
The number 1 feature I want in current filesystems is block-level checksums.
I've had to perform data recovery for a number of people recently (yes, backups help, but sometimes having them just 24 hours out of date means there are advantages to attempting to recover the data off the failed or failing drive or array)
Now, using a combination of tools I've been able to get the faulty drive to give me back data, but I've got no way whatsoever of knowing if the data it's given back to me is actually the data that was stored on it in the first place.
Having end-to-end checksums would easily allow me to assign a confidence level to data recovery procedures, letting me know that the data I have retrieved is what was stored - it would also allow better control over operations like fsck or chkdsk if the blocks that hold metadata are also checksummed, that way it would be possible to tell if a block has been randomly corrupted somehow, or if it's stored as intended.
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