RAID 5 Data Recovery

When a RAID 5 fails, many of our customers come to us desperate for help. In most instances, a person's job or business can be on the line when this type of data loss occurs. Many corporate executives don't understand why there wasn't a backup of the data prior to the crash, and that can be a hard thing to explain. We understand how difficult this time can be, and we work with you every step of the way in order to get your data back as quickly and efficiently as possible.

One of the biggest concerns we have from potential customers is: "will your services make matters worse?" The answer is a resounding NO. We start off with an initial evaluation just to determine the integrity of the drives, and confirm they are functioning as they should. This usually consists of just a quick powerup to verify there is no unusual noises. If the customer has specified that a drive is making unusual noises, then we do not risk powering it up at all. There are a series of tests we can perform in order to determine how serious the failure is, without risking further damage.

In situations where there is a physical problem with the drives, then we will proceed with making whatever repairs are necessary in order to get the drive functioning, in order that we may be able to image it. While we can technically rebuild the array in our emmulater with one drive missing, rarely have we seen this work effectively enough to garner the best results in the recovery process.

If all of the drives power up and appear to be functioning properly, then we start off by creating an image of each drive in the array. These are sector-by-sector clones. From there we analyze the strip, and determine a number of parameters associated with the array that will allow us to recover as much data as possible.

RAID recoveries typically require 3-7 business days to complete. We do offer expedited services that can reduce this time down to 1 business day in some cases. Typically our expedite fee for RAID recoveries is well worth the benefit of getting your data back in the quickest manner possible. We also have emergency weekend service available.

Once the recovery is complete we will transfer your data to an external drive which you can then restore onto your local server. We have multi terrabyte capability, so we can handle just about any size configuration.

If you have any questions, pertaining to our services, you can call 1-800-717-8974 and speak to a representative today.

What Is RAID 5?

Uses block-level striping with parity data distributed across all member disks. RAID 5 has achieved popularity due to its low cost of redundancy. Generally RAID 5 is implemented with hardware support for parity calculations.

Every time a block is written to a disk in a RAID 5, a parity block is generated within the same stripe. A block is often composed of many consecutive sectors on a disk. A series of blocks (a block from each of the disks in an array) is collectively called a "stripe". If another block, or some portion of a block, is written on that same stripe the parity block (or some portion of the parity block) is recalculated and rewritten. For small writes, this requires reading the old parity, reading the old data, writing the new parity, and writing the new data. The disk used for the parity block is staggered from one stripe to the next, hence the term "distributed parity blocks". RAID 5 writes are expensive in terms of disk operations and traffic between the disks and the controller.