When your RAID 5 fails, you need to perform RAID recovery. Yet, before it, you had better figure out the 5 important things listed in this article. They can contribute to RAID 5 recovery a lot.
RAID 5 is increasingly preferred by both businesses and individuals thanks to its high speed and fault-tolerance. Nevertheless, it doesn’t refer to that it is immune from failures. It still can fail due to physical, logical or miscellaneous other issues. Now, if you are confronted with RAID 5, in prior to attempting RAID recovery, you need to make clear the following 5 things.
1. Value of Lost Data
In the first place, you ought to consider whether you can afford to lose the data in failed RAID array. That is to say, you need to assess the value of data, such as the value of damaged PST file. If it is really important for you, you’re better off taking recourse to expert RAID recovery services instead of attempting DIY recovery. Though the professional service may cost some bucks, you’ll gain higher chances for successful data recovery.
2. Number of Failed Drives
Then, you have to check how many drives in the RAID array have failed. If only a single drive malfunctioned, it is easy to replace it and rebuild the array. However, assuming that multiple drives have failed in RAID 5, it demands the tailored tools and specialized experience since such a case is far more complicated and harder to be dealt with, highly beyond what you can do.
3. Order of Drives
As we all know, every drive in the array has its own exclusive order, which is very significant. Hence, when you remove the drives from array, it is suggested to label them to remember the orders of the drives. Otherwise, later data recovery will be much more complex and difficult.
4. Real Causes of RAID Failure
Additionally, it is essential to figure out what resulted in your RAID 5 failures. Is it physical or mechanical damage or some other issues? So-called physical damage includes bad sectors, strange noises from drives, crashed heads or so on. In case of them, you have to evaluate the condition of every drive before recovering array. Yet, if suffering logical issues, you can invest in reliable RAID recovery software to have a try.
5. Clone of Each Drive
Last but not least, before RAID recovery, a bit level clone of each drive in array is demanded. It’s because that recovery should be performed on the clones instead of the original drives. Otherwise, once recovery fails, you will damage the original drives thoroughly and kiss your RAID data goodbye forever.
Author Introduction:
Shirley Zhang is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including recover mdf and outlook repair software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com
Leave a Reply