"For those that know about RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) servers, have used them before, or are currently using them, they know that these servers rarely crash, and are much more reliable than normal disk drives. So when such a server fails, an expert is needed to handle the
RAID recovery process. Such professionals are not easy to find, and your local computer maintenance shop probably does not have such a guy. As such, you are left to look hard to find one – and chances are they are very good at their job.
Once you get a professional RAID recovery guy, or company, they will usually start off with an assessment of the damage. A RAID server can fail for a host of reasons, all of which need to be considered for the experts to know what they are dealing with. Once they have an idea, they will give a report detailing the problem and how to fix it. This report will give you the choice of whether to proceed with the operation or not.
If you are unsure at this stage, you should know that the professionals will work at your site, so if critical information is involved you can be sure it will not get out. Plus, most crews work all night if they have to.Getting a professional RAID recovery service is absolutely necessary if you are to recover critical personal and business data from your RAID servers."
Quick Look On RAID Recovery
"The Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) is a technology that is designed to combine several disks to a single storage and improve performance and fault tolerance which can be caused by data redundancy. There are several types of RAID, or RAID levels which vary in the pattern of the data placement and the degree of redundancy which can be used based on hardware RAID or software RAID. Hardware RAID is by means of a dedicated hardware while a software RAID is by means of an operating system.
Some examples of RAID recovery software tested to work on real-life environments are
DiskInternals (DiskInternals RAID Recovery version 2.7), Runtime (Runtime RAID Reconstructor version 4.02), ReclaiMe RAID (ReclaiMe Free RAID Recovery build 301) and ZAR (Zero Assumption Recovery version 8.5). Another example would be that of R-Studio although it is not actually considered as recovery software. R-Studio can only work with healthy arrays. Data storage techniques can be used to store user data in the RAID.
The techniques that can be used include “striping” which writes the data in the member disk. Member disk means disks that form an array. Another technique is mirroring. Here, identical data copies are stored in the member disks. Next is parity. This is a type of data organization wherein striping is used along with a checksum calculation which would then be written on the member disk. A combination of the different techniques can also be used."
Let The Professionals Do The Job
"The Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID if you prefer, is an advanced data storage technique that increases the storage capacity of otherwise ordinary disk drives. The drives are setup to mirror each other, thus increasing capacity and introducing an element of data redundancy – crucial in the event of disk failure and subsequent data loss. The performance is also increased, as is the reliability of data. These are all good things, but the complexity of the arrangement makes RAID recovery that much difficult to deal with. It is only through the help of professionals that one can be able to recover stored data on RAID servers.There are many reasons a RAID server can fail, and these include RAID controller failure, damaged disks, failure of the array, configuration trouble, among others. The different sources of trouble usually means that every approach is handled differently. Thus, only a professional can be trusted to do RAID recovery,
something many maintenance shops are aware of since they do not offer the service in the first place.One common thing that most RAID recovery experts will recommend is to have the disks/server in a place that is free from human traffic and pollution (think dust particles). A single speck of dust can cause the server to fail, so the server room should be kept well ventilated at all times. In the event of the unthinkable, call the professionals; they will know what to do."