RAID Recovery need not be impossible for beginners.
RAID systems are very complicated structures off combined hard drives and the software to control them. As with most devices the more complex they are the more likely they are to fail. RAID arrays are no exception Generally speaking it is best to send off a crashed RAID system for professional repair. However many of the newer, more powerful data recovery programs are capable of RAID recovery from systems that have lost or corrupted files
RAID 5 Recovery
December 15, 2008
Filed under raid recovery
Tags: data recovery, data recovery software, raid 5 recovery, raid data recovery, raid recovery, recover data, recover raid, recover raid data, server recovery
RAID 5 is known to be the perfect bundle of hard drives for improved performance, fault tolerance and high capacity and storage efficiency. When a drive stops working in a RAID 5 array, the failed drive can be substituted with a new drive and the data can be rebuild from the distributed parity and a healthy array can finally be achieved.
Situations wherein you face data loss in RAID 5:
- RAID 5 is good when you have single drive failure, if there is a multiple drive failure then you will face data loss due to array failure.
- The most common occurring cause is re-initialization of a RAID adaptor eventually causing failure of the RAID Array.
- Re-initialization usually takes hours and will write zeros over the entire disks resulting in permanent data loss.
If you come across any data loss situation with RAID 5, RAID Recovery software may help recover data but to perform data recovery task using any RAID data recovery software one should have proper knowledge and skills. The last chance would be is to contact RAID Recovery professionals.
RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive / Independent Disks)
December 3, 2008
Filed under General
Tags: crashed hard drive recovery, data recovery, hard drive recovery, raid recovery, recover data, recover lost data, recover raid data, server recovery
RAID is acronym for Redundant Array of Independent / Inexpensive Disks. The concept of RAID was introduced by David A. Patterson, Garth Gibson and Randy H. Katz at the University California at Berkeley in 1988. The main purpose of RAID is to store the same data at multiple places and improving the performance of storage system. This helps to share the work load in parallel among the sub units and data is always available from any one of the mirrored copies.
RAID is mostly used in server computers, and is usually implemented with the same sized disk drives although it’s not compulsory to use the same sized hard drives. RAID usually used in case of computers that are dedicated for intensive storage tasks like video, audio or any other space consuming data.
The implementation of RAID
Storing data on RAID drives can be managed by either software-based RAID or hardware-based RAID and sometimes hybrid RAID’s.
Software RAID
Operating system manages the array through the normal device controller. Software based RAID are faster than the Hardware based RAID.
Hardware RAID
Hardware RAID requires a special purpose RAID controller. This can be a PCI expansion card or a high speed Fiber channel which could connect the disk either directly or in a network.
Types of RAID’s:
RAID 0 (Striped Set): splits data evenly across two or more disks with no uniformity in the information for redundancy.
RAID 1 (Mirrored Set): maintains an exact copy (or mirror) of a set of data on two or more disks.
RAID 5: uses block-level striping with parity data distributed across all member associated disks. RAID 5 is much popular due to its low cost of redundancy.
RAID Failure
There are several typical situations where a RAID may not work. Some of the reasons are stated below that would lead to a Data loss situation in the RAID.
- Server Boot Failure
- Controller card failure
- Virus infected
- One or more of the hard disks in the array failed
- Fire damage to the RAID
The advantage of a RAID is that the chances of data recovery are higher. The data in a RAID can be recovered by a professional RAID recovery service provider where in, the RAID is diagnosed and care is taken that the data is recovered to the maximum possible extent.
