More RAID 5 sets are finished off by the rescue attempt than by the failure of a single disk. One more rebuild loaded onto already worn disks, or one repair option used to overwrite existing records, and what is normally an easy task has now become difficult. RAID 5 data recovery here eliminates this risk: all members are imaged first, the array is then rebuilt in software, and no writes will land on any of your disks.
There is no guessing about a RAID quote. One free diagnostic, then one written number, £500 + VAT upward depending on member count, and on logical rebuilds, in most cases you only pay if we recover your data.
Losing one single disk is the one loss of hardware a RAID 5 system was designed to absorb. It is the way that users deal with this one single disk loss over the next few hours that results in the majority of time spent in recovering lost data from RAID systems. All six of these types of losses are from North-East server rooms.
Once you have placed the spare drive in the RAID system, the RAID controller proceeds to work through each of the remaining drives in the array (hour after hour) until one of the tired ones gives up. At this point, the RAID array that was degraded in the morning is no longer functional by teatime. This occurs more frequently than any other type of RAID failure we see.
The backplane, host adapter and controller fail well before the disks in them do. The disks in the set are fine; the problem is that you'll never see the volume until the layout and parity have been read off the platters.
When a disk dropped offline two weeks ago it is essentially a snapshot of the state of the entire array two weeks ago. When you push that disk back online, the controller begins to "fold" this older image into new stripes which will break parity across the entire array.
If you lose a sector on one disk, the parity will cover it without complaint. However, if a second disk has a bad sector at the same location, it creates a gap that nothing can bridge. Therefore, before rebuilding a stripe again, weak areas on each member are copied around first.
Options under menus to recreate, initialise or repair will overwrite existing metadata for where data resides, and the warnings given for using these options are not worth reading. If any option has already been selected, stop now.
Changing RAID levels or adding a new disk to your array can take hours of constant work. If there's a power outage, system crash or if someone decides to pull the plug (reboot) when things aren't going right, your entire array will be left sitting somewhere in limbo, partially laid out for one configuration and partially for the other, and readable as neither.
Your disks are never put back into an active RAID group in this lab. Each individual disk gets placed onto a hardware imaging machine, and any disk with a physical defect goes to the repair bench first. After that, every decision is made from the images: disk order, stripe size, rotation and the direction parity runs. The volume is then built virtually on top of these images and the files are pulled out of it. Your own disks remain untouched and sit on a shelf, the fallback nobody expects to need.
Fitting a spare and letting the controller try again on your RAID may seem productive. However, if your set has already used up its redundancy, this is probably the most dangerous action you can take. A full rebuild will put the highest load on the most worn disk(s) at exactly the time when they can handle the least amount of additional stress. The loss of another drive will turn what would normally be a routine job into a difficult and slow process. If a rebuild gets stuck or you see a large number of read errors being logged for your RAID, then you need to power down and step back. Nothing about an array that is switched off gets worse.
A significant portion of this work is the whole trading history of a small business. That includes Dell and HP's PowerEdge and ProLiant servers as well as self-built towers, plus Synology, QNAP and Netgear storage units, their disks sent down to us from Aberdeen, Peterhead, Elgin, Inverurie and Montrose. Engineering consultancies and offshore contracting companies make up a fair part of the diary. Disks come to the Edinburgh lab once you have your quote, two and a half hours down the A90, either dropped off during our hours (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, no appointment needed) or overnight by tracked post, and a set of disks that is stopping a business working is moved up the bench queue. The wider service sits on RAID recovery and NAS recovery, with the money on the data recovery cost page.
Unplug the power cord first. Get a quote before you box up each member, and each member should be labelled with its bay number; the set then gets solved in software. The written figure reaches you first.
Get a quote first by telephone or use our free online diagnostic. Most of what you see on this bench will then be delivered via tracked, insured post. This is one of the safest ways to move a failing drive and packages handed in at a North-East post office are normally delivered here the next working day.
Still attached to a laptop, desktop, MacBook, iMac, server or CCTV/DVR unit? Remove the hard drive or SSD first. The bare drive travels on its own; when removing disks from a server remove all the disks and label each disk by its bay. This lab does not take machines apart. Any storage that has been soldered onto a motherboard (as in T2 and Apple Silicon Macs and a couple of thin laptops) will not be worked on: if it will not unbolt, we cannot work on it. If you're not sure what type of machine you have, ring us first. Phones and tablets are also not taken on.
↓ Print the shipping & booking-in form (PDF)
Your parcel should be addressed to Edinburgh Data Recovery, approximately two and a half hours (and 130 miles) from Aberdeen via the A90; alternatively it can reach us the next working day by tracked post if this journey time / distance is prohibitive to travel. As soon as your drive has been scheduled in we will contact you.
Still unsure about what should be placed inside of the packaging? Please call us first on 0800 689 0668, or use our free online diagnostic tool to assist you in deciding which items belong inside of the packaging before sealing.