NAS died. get data from RAID0?

Soldato
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hi guys

our NAS died last night and unfortunately it died before the backup started.

to avoid me being scalped for losing all work that happend yesterday i need to try and recover as much data from the drives as possible.

can anyone suggest any decent (free) software?

the drives are 4x 250gb drives and were in RAID0 configuration.

i can see 1 drive in the storage section of admin/comp management. but i cannot access it. im now looking for free software to try and restore any data.

can a kind guru point me any decent free software that i can use to recover the data. many thanks!
 
Soldato
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btw - it seems that disk1 of the array is the dead one :(

unfortunately the majority of the data lost was in the accounts folder that would most likely have been on disk1 (maybe? i guess with fragmentation it could be anywhere?)

i must admit im not that genned up on RAID. this nas is fairly old (5 years) so i guess its time was up.
 

GeX

GeX

Soldato
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The data will be strewn over the whole array, and your chance of recovering it in any usable form is slim.

Who thought that a 5 year old NAS running RAID0 was a good idea? Time to seriously review your backup and recovery policies!
 
Soldato
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bah. cant get anything from those 2 drives. (2&3)

only machine with enough sata connections on is mine and im using that to restore mondays backup.

i take it i need to add all drives that were in the RAID array to see if we can restore anything? thought i might be able to get something with just 2.
 
Soldato
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The data will be strewn over the whole array, and your chance of recovering it in any usable form is slim.

Who thought that a 5 year old NAS running RAID0 was a good idea? Time to seriously review your backup and recovery policies!

agreed.

we are only a small company though so cash is tight for big new raid arrays. normally we get a nightly full backup though so it wouldnt have been much of an issue.

got a new spare RAID drive we can use (mirrored... raid5?) that will be much more efficient. pity i didnt use that before! doh. hindsight eh?
 
Soldato
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the old company folder so we needed to start again from scratch. so finances and my budget were none-existent.

drives used to last many years. i guess not so much these days. to be honest i thought this NAS was raid5 or something. raid0 is useless!
 
Soldato
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I have read this post in shock, so much lack of knowledge!

RAID 0 is STUPID, you will loose all your data, you CANNOT just access 1 or 2 drives, u need to put ALL the drives in an identical box that works............ the PC will see them as 'one drive - ONLY if all 4 are there, and using the same box...........

Epic face palm, use RAID 5 next time and this will sustain a single drive failure...


4 drive raid 0 for back up........ Iv heard it all now :(
 
Soldato
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You're stuffed I'm afraid. Roll back to your last backup and ensure that you're on a mirrored setup for the future, there's nothing really you can do to change this situation - even if you gain access to the drives, you're not going to get intact files from them.
 
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I'd concentrate on the faulty disk, not the array.

See if you can find a replacement drive and swap the logic boards out, then put the drives back into the NAS.

Recovering data from the other 3 is going to be a nightmare, if not impossible.

Lesson learned, RAID 1+0 or 5 and don't rely on RAID resiliency for your data protection!
 
Soldato
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I have read this post in shock, so much lack of knowledge!

RAID 0 is STUPID, you will loose all your data, you CANNOT just access 1 or 2 drives, u need to put ALL the drives in an identical box that works............ the PC will see them as 'one drive - ONLY if all 4 are there, and using the same box...........

Epic face palm, use RAID 5 next time and this will sustain a single drive failure...


4 drive raid 0 for back up........ Iv heard it all now :(

im not a fully trained support/server techie. im a developer and project manager here but im in charge of the IT kit. i had suggested the kit be replaced in the past but that didnt go down well. i think they might listen next time ;)

after having a big chat with accounts (who were the only people to lose anything, i work on another system) they have admitted they didnt do much yesterday so will just redo the work.

i am using a raid5 (mirrored raid anyway) now for the data. at least we have some contingency if 1 drive fails now. normally i do a backup every night but last night i had to leave early so it didnt get done.

actually there is software to access data with a missing drive. how much data that isnt corrupted is obviously questionable. i doubt much but its only the accounts stuff that is missing so it could well be only 50megs of data in sage and invoices. so that might have been on one of the other drives. unlikely i know.

i was pretty shocked that this NAS was all raid0. with it only being 5 years old and knowing there was 4 drives in there i guessed it was striped and mirrored? i know better now.

btw - be before i started here BT looked after their IT stuff, and it was BT that specified and setup the drive. i guess that should have set off some alarm bells! lol
 
Soldato
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im not a fully trained support/server techie. im a developer and project manager here but im in charge of the IT kit. i had suggested the kit be replaced in the past but that didnt go down well. i think they might listen next time ;)

after having a big chat with accounts (who were the only people to lose anything, i work on another system) they have admitted they didnt do much yesterday so will just redo the work.

i am using a raid5 (mirrored raid anyway) now for the data. at least we have some contingency if 1 drive fails now. normally i do a backup every night but last night i had to leave early so it didnt get done.

actually there is software to access data with a missing drive. how much data that isnt corrupted is obviously questionable. i doubt much but its only the accounts stuff that is missing so it could well be only 50megs of data in sage and invoices. so that might have been on one of the other drives. unlikely i know.

i was pretty shocked that this NAS was all raid0. with it only being 5 years old and knowing there was 4 drives in there i guessed it was striped and mirrored? i know better now.

btw - be before i started here BT looked after their IT stuff, and it was BT that specified and setup the drive. i guess that should have set off some alarm bells! lol

Get yourself some automated backup software, best solution would be something that could backup to an offsite location. It's expensive but so is losing an entire days worth or work.

RAID 5 is good as it gives you the ability to continue working should something go wrong but have a spare drive on standby for when one fails and still run a proper backup.
 
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