T10 Protection Information (PI) allows a checksum to be transmitted from the HBA and application to the disk drive. Why is this important ?
Traditionally, protecting the integrity of customers’ data has been done with multiple discrete solutions, including Error Correcting Code (ECC) and Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC), but there have been gaps across the I/O path from the operating system to the storage. The implementation of the T10-PI standard, in conjunction with other industry player’s implementations, ensures that data is validated as it moves through the data path, from the application, to the HBA, to storage, enabling seamless end-to-end integrity.
So how great is the chance that you get a hit from Bit error ?
Fibre Channel originally developed at 25 MBs; today it is at 1600 MBs (8 Gb FC full duplex). The Channel error rate is 1 in 10E12 bits.
IDE channel originally was .625 MBs and it is now 480 times faster at 300 MBs. The channel error rate is 1 in 10E12 bits.
It has dramatically increased. So the T10 PI should protect the channels from
silent errors.
Read on here (a good blog from Ritchie, thanks !) and here from the
free Library (thanks !)
Storage CH Blog 
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