How does bitrot protection actually work?

Nhellie wrote:
As per release notes, "Support bitrot data protection. Automatically detect and correct corruption due to media degradation.", for me this means that as soon as you enable BitRot protection, the NAS will scan-detect-fix corruptions on the data.

Yes. But the "how" hasn't been disclosed, and that is what Scott is asking. We know its not using the btrfs experimental modes, so it appears to be a proprietary technique Netgear implemented that does something similar.

It would be useful to have more information, so people will have a better idea what it can/can't do. It could be quite useful in some circumstances (for instance reducing data loss when disk cloning is needed). But its hard to know, w/o some explanation.