A digital data storage system in the form of a mass storage subsystem in which information is stored on one or more disk storage units, with a storage element constituting a track on a disk storage device and each track storing a plurality of records. Each track in each disk storage device of the digital data storage system is associated with a descriptor. When the control device retrieves the contents of a record, it can process the contents to generate a check value and compare the generated check value with the check value for the record as stored in the descriptor associated with the track. If they compare appropriately, the control device can determine that the record that was retrieved was, in fact, the record that was to be retrieved. On the other hand, if they do not compare appropriately, the control device can determine that the record that was retrieved was not the proper record. If the contents of the record are updated, the control device can update the check value in the descriptor to reflect the update of the record.