So you need to do an fsck? My big question after reading this article (and others like it) is whether it is enough to just power up the device (for how long?), or if each byte actually needs to be read.

The case an average user is worried about is where they have an external SSD that they back stuff up to on a relatively infrequent schedule. In that situation, the question is whether just plugging it and copying some stuff to it is enough to ensure that all the data on the drive is refreshed, or if there's some explicit kind of "maintenance" that needs to be done.