RAID Data Recovery

Using advanced engineering techniques, we can perform RAID data recovery from large capacity, enterprise grade storage devices such as RAID arrays, network attached storage (NAS) devices and storage area network (SAN) devices. These devices typically contain critical business data for companies that cannot afford to have their systems down for any length of time. Our expedited data recovery services allow businesses to be back up in running in no time after a data loss event.

Although RAID systems are typically implemented for data security reasons, no system is 100% secure. For example, if a virus attacks a RAID system with redundancy, it attacks all copies of the data rendering the entire system useless. At PCS, RAID data recovery is done by recovering data from individual failed disks and then reassembling it based on the type of RAID system.

• Single level RAID 1

  Single level RAID 1 is the simplest RAID configuration requiring just two disks of equal size. When data is written to a RAID 1 array, it is written to one disk and simultaneously copied or "mirrored" to a redundant disk. If one drive of a RAID 1 array fails, the system will continue to operate using the redundant disk.

• Single level RAID 5

  Single level RAID 5 is a RAID configuration that combines striping with redundancy. The striping portion of RAID 5 is very similar that of RAID 0, but the redundancy portion is quite different from RAID 1. RAID 5 systems create redundancy by calculating parity blocks and distributing these parity blocks among all disks in the array. A minimum of three disks is required for a RAID 5 system. The maximum number of disks is limited by the RAID controller. RAID 5 systems are very popular since they have the performance benefits of striping with the added security of redundancy. Even better is that the storage efficiency (the ratio of the RAID system capacity to the total capacity of all individual disks) is much higher than that of RAID 1 (which is 50%).

• Multi-level RAID 0+1

  Multi-level RAID 0+1 combines the performance enhancements of RAID 0 with the redundancy of RAID 1. A RAID 0+1 array is constructed by taking a RAID 0 array consisting of two or more disks and mirroring the entire array to a different array consisting of an equal number of disks. This creates a RAID 1 Super-Array consisting of two RAID 0 Sub-Arrays. RAID 0+1 is often referred to as a mirror of stripes because it operates by creating a mirror of a stripe set. Some people might refer to this configuration as a RAID 1+0 but this does not follow most industry standards. The standard multi-level RAID naming convention is to list the Sub-Array first and the Super-Array second.

• Multi-Level RAID 1+0 (RAID 10)

  Multi-Level RAID 1+0 (RAID 10) combines the redundancy of RAID 1 with the performance enhancements of RAID 0. A RAID 1+0 array is constructed by taking two or more RAID 1 Sub-Arrays and applying RAID 0 striping across these arrays to create a RAID 0 Super-Array. RAID 1+0 is often referred to as a stripe of mirrors because it operates by striping data across multiple mirrored sets. Some people might refer to this configuration as a RAID 0+1 but this does not follow most industry standards. The standard multi-level RAID naming convention is to list the Sub-Array first and the Super-Array second. 

• RAID 6

  Single level RAID 6 is similar to RAID 5 in that it stripes data across many disks and distributes parity through out the disks. But instead of storing one set of parity data per block, RAID 6 stores two sets of parity data per block. As a result of this additional parity, RAID 6 requires a minimum of four disks to implement compared to three for RAID 5. This "dual distributed parity" allows for simultaneous loss of two drives in the system.

We can recover your crashed server using your own backup, and if a backup is not available, we will attempt to recover the data from the damaged hard drive and recover your server to a working condition so that you can continue your business as usual.  Full recovery of your server environment depends on availability of required software such as Windows, Programs, and the recovered data if recovery was possible.

Network Attached Storage devices usually are made up of a RAID0, RAID1 (Mirroring), or RAID 5 array with a Linux operating system.

NAS devices are usually only connected to via Ethernet network.  If you can't connect to your drive or you see a red or yellow light on, immediately power off the device and call us and we'll guide you through the process to bring it in for evaluation.

It's easy to see the value of virtual machines from a business network standpoint. However, due to their complicated nature, data loss from virtual environments is fairly common and can make recovery complicated. PCS's programmers have developed groundbreaking methods to recover data from virtualized environments, including VMware, Citrix, Parallels, VirtualBox and Hyper-V.