Patent attributes
A synthetic full backup of a source volume representing a state of the volume at a current time is retrieved, the synthetic full having been generated by merging a full backup of the volume performed at an initial time with an incremental backup of the volume performed at the current time, after the initial time. A bitmap tracking changes to the volume made between the initial and current times is accessed. The bitmap is used to identify a location on the volume having changes made between the initial and current times. First data written to the location on the volume is read. Second data written to the same location on the synthetic full backup is read. First and second checksums are generated based on the first and second data, respectively. The checksums are compared and if any do not match, an indication is generated that the synthetic full is corrupt.