Verify Disk Vs. Verify Disk Permissions?

[Robby C]

Hey everyone,
So between today and yesterday I have just been doing some casual maintenance with my Mac Mini. I decided I would run the First Aid program in utilities just to make sure everything is doing well. I was just wondering what is the difference between the two options "Verify Disk" and Verify Disk Permissions"- what exactly do each of them do? It almost sounds self-explanatory but can someone please shed some light for me?

I've ran all the verification tests on each hard drive I have and repaired them when needed. So far it has only been my external WD hard drive that needed to have a repair, though I didn't notice anything wrong with it prior to running the verification test. Basically, I'm just wondering what each of the functions do.

Thanks in advance for any info!

 

[FourCandles]

Disk permissions = what users and the system are allowed to do with each file, e.g. read only, read/write, etc.

Verify disk = the directory structure etc. of the disk itself.

Compare

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1452

and

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1782