Data Integrity Field (DIF) is an approach to protect data integrity in

computer data storage Computer data storage is a technology consisting of computer components and Data storage, recording media that are used to retain digital data (computing), data. It is a core function and fundamental component of computers. The central pro ...

from data corruption. It was proposed in 2003 by the T10 subcommittee of the

International Committee for Information Technology Standards The InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS), (pronounced "insights"), is an ANSI-accredited standards development organization composed of Information technology developers. It was formerly known as the X3 and NCITS. ...

. A similar approach for data integrity was added in 2016 to the NVMe 1.2.1 specification. Packet-based storage transport protocols have CRC protection on command and data payloads. Interconnect buses have parity protection. Memory systems have parity detection/correction schemes. I/O protocol controllers at the transport/interconnect boundaries have internal data path protection. Data availability in storage systems is frequently measured simply in terms of the reliability of the hardware components and the effects of redundant hardware. But the reliability of the software, its ability to detect errors, and its ability to correctly report or apply corrective actions to a failure have a significant bearing on the overall storage system availability. The data exchange usually takes place between the host CPU and storage disk. There may be a storage data controller in between these two. The controller could be RAID controller or simple storage switches. DIF included extending the

disk sector In computer disk storage, a sector is a subdivision of a track on a magnetic disk or optical disc. Each sector stores a fixed amount of user-accessible data, traditionally 512 bytes for hard disk drives (HDDs) and 2048 bytes for CD-ROMs and D ...

from its traditional 512 bytes, to 520 bytes, by adding eight additional protection bytes. This extended sector is defined for Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) devices, which is in turn used in many enterprise storage technologies, such as

Fibre Channel Fibre Channel (FC) is a high-speed data transfer protocol providing in-order, lossless delivery of raw block data. Fibre Channel is primarily used to connect computer data storage to servers in storage area networks (SAN) in commercial data cen ...

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells da ...

included support for DIF in the

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ope ...

. An evolution of this technology called T10 Protection Information was introduced in 2011.Safeguarding Data From Corruption - Technology Paper
PDF, Seagate, 2011

References

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External links

Linux Data Integrity
August 30, 2008,

, by Martin K. Petersen (archived from the original on January 9, 2015)
Linux Storage Topology and Advanced Features
November 24, 2009, by Martin K. Petersen
Data Integrity Field - T10.org
working on Feb 15 2019. Error detection and correction