Difference between cover property and assert property

The difference is there is no failure with a cover directive. When you cover a property, you expect it to be true at some point, but it is OK to be false. If you assert a property, it can never be false.

For example, to make sure you have tested back-to-back-write operations, you would write a cover directive:

cover property (@(posedge clk) op==Write |=> op==Write);

If you have a Write followed by a Read, that is OK, so you would not write this as an assertion.

If you wanted to test that after a Read operation, you must get a data Valid signal between 1-4 clock cycle later, you would write an assertion.

assert property (@(posedge clk) op==Read |-> ##[1:4] Valid);