I'm starting to get a collection of computers at home and to support them I have my "server" linux box running a raid array.

Its currently mdadm raid1, going to raid5 once I have more drives (and then raid6 I'm hoping for). However I've heard various stories about data getting corrupted on one drive and you never noticing due to the other drive being used, up until the point when the first drive fails, and you find your second drive is also screwed (and 3rd, 4th, 5th drive).

Obviously backups are important and I'm taking care of that also, however I know I've previously seen scripts which claim to help against this problem and allow you to check your raid while its running. However looking for these scripts again now I'm finding it hard to find anything which seems simular to what I ran before and I feel I'm out of date and not understanding whatever has changed.

How would you check a running raid to make sure all disks are still preforming normally? I monitor SMART on all the drives and also have mdadm set to email me in case of failure but I'd like to know my drives occasionally "check" themselves too.

Thanks in Advance.

I'm starting to get a collection of computers at home and to support them I have my "server" linux box running a RAID array.

Its currently mdadm RAID-1, going to RAID-5 once I have more drives (and then RAID-6 I'm hoping for). However I've heard various stories about data getting corrupted on one drive and you never noticing due to the other drive being used, up until the point when the first drive fails, and you find your second drive is also screwed (and 3rd, 4th, 5th drive).

Obviously backups are important and I'm taking care of that also, however I know I've previously seen scripts which claim to help against this problem and allow you to check your RAID while its running. However looking for these scripts again now I'm finding it hard to find anything which seems similar to what I ran before and I feel I'm out of date and not understanding whatever has changed.

How would you check a running RAID to make sure all disks are still preforming normally? 

I monitor SMART on all the drives and also have mdadm set to email me in case of failure but I'd like to know my drives occasionally "check" themselves too.