RAID data recovery

RAID (redundant array of independent disks) is a group of disks united into one logical unit to improve fault tolerance and operation speed of information storage systems.

Despite the fact that the use of RAID significantly increases the data storage reliability, they do not guarantee full protection against data loss. Here are the most common works on data recovery from RAID:

• RAID data recovery when several hard drives are simultaneously failing;
• RAID information recovery in case of the logical destruction of information;
• RAID recovery in case of controller malfunctioning;
• data recovery after user errors.

Considering the peculiarities of RAID structure, data recovery works from them are much more difficult than recovery of separate storage drives. At first, detailed diagnostic of all the storage drives forming the part of RAID is performed. Information recovery works start from creation of sector-wise copies of every disk. Specialized equipment is used to create copies. This equipment excludes any recording possibility writing to the source storage drive. Software image of RAID is created from obtained copies. All further analysis and recovery works are performed with the obtained image. If it is impossible to create copies, work with disks is performed by using hardware record protectors.

Thanks to the use of special internally developed software, software and hardware means for the analysis and data recovery, for over a 15-year period EPOS experts have recovered information from more than four thousand RAIDs.