In the event that a hard reboot is performed or a system loses power without a proper shutdown, what checks should be run to verify file-system/data integrity on ext3 partitions?
I've heard of fsck, but I've also heard that ext3 makes the need for it obsolete?
Your system should automatically perform an fsck when it's restarted, if needed. The fsck command is a front end for the various filesystem-specific checking programs. You should see an fsck.ext3 on your system, for example.
fsck will still be run with ext3, it will just be much faster by default because it will just replay the journal.
If you want to be absolutely sure that the file system is consistent you can touch /forcefsck and reboot to force a full file system check.
