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Diagnosing Database Corruption

Jeff Mlakar has started a series on database corruption.  His first post involves finding corruption:

The cause lies in layers below SQL Server. The most common are hardware faults; in particular, issues with the I/O Subsystem. Any component in the I/O Subsystem can fail and be the cause of database corruption: disks, controllers, CPU, memory, network switch, network cables, SAN, etc.

Database corruption cannot entirely be prevented. It is not a matter of if but rather when

Disks go bad. So do NICs, cables, routers, and everything else physical below the SQL Server Instance. This is why it is important to know that we cannot entirely prevent corruption – only deal with and mitigate it.

Click through for a few ways to find potential corruption.