RAID Disk Recovery by HDRG

When your RAID server crashes, it’s likely your ability to access your RAID volume is limited, if not altogether nonexistent. In situations like this, Hard Drive Recovery Group offers RAID disk recovery services, which is a key specialty we have focused on since RAID systems first established themselves as an important corporate data storage format.

When a RAID hd fails, it is critical that the recovery is only attempted by a professional – in most cases, even the most experienced systems engineers are somewhat lost when it comes to a corrupt RAID HD. We’ve seen the emergencies that non-professional RAID disk recovery has caused, and it is never pretty.

RAID System Degradation

Typically, when RAID systems lose a hard drive to mechanical failure, they are not necessarily finished and unworkable. In fact, most RAID 5 and higher systems are geared specifically to continue to operate when a RAID disk is lost, albeit in a “degraded” mode. In systems based on RAID 5, there have been reports of up to 65% speed degradation, while with RAID 10, as little as 6%.

Operating in degraded RAID mode is not only possible, but a good working solution when a RAID disk fails. And yet, many system administrators are content to run degraded RAIDs longer than they should be, which can lead to total RAID failure.

Tips for RAID Disk Recovery

When a single hard disk drive has failed in most RAID arrays (except RAID 0 and RAID 1, perhaps), it is quite possible to recover the data without sending it in for RAID disk recovery services. Because the RAID has what is called fault tolerance redundancy, it enables the system to continue working. But because a second RAID hd failure will destroy the RAID setup, it is best to rebuild right away.

One of the key factors when rebuilding a RAID array is the backup. It is always important to have a backup, but never more so than when your RAID system is rebuilding itself. If your RAID hard disks were purchased around the same time, and are of the same lot, they may all be subject to failure, mainly because of age and amount of use. So backing up all data should always be your first step when attempting a single disk RAID recovery.

The RAID rebuild process is generally a very intensive process and is likely to be hard on the drives. Therefore, backing up reduces the likelihood of a total RAID loss due to second disk failure. Be sure that the entire RAID is imaged properly and backed up on an external device. We have seen situations where RAIDs were backed up on drives within the RAID, and the resulting failure was catastrophic.

Multi Disk Raid Failures

In cases where more than one hard disk drive has failed, your only course of action may be to find a professional RAID disk recovery specialist like Hard Drive Recovery Group. Attempting to rebuild a RAID which has two drives failed can actually worsen data loss, and make the inevitable RAID disk recovery even harder than it would have been originally. Our RAID repair technicians have years of experience recovering servers of all operating systems, including Linux, Sun, Windows, Mac and others, and are ready to help you, 24 hours a day.

Contact us here for a free RAID system repair consultation.

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