Question Raid 5 Recovery

[gavlar0]

Hello, I need your help please, I have had two out of 4 hard drives fail, they were in a raid 5 configuration, the drives still spin up and are readable but my NAS wont recognise them.

I want to rebuild the raid using software (unless there is a cheaper way of doing it?)

I want to use my laptop to run the process but im trying to find the cheapest way of being able to see the disks all at once. There are several options ive looked at from buying a desktop machine to sata - usb adaptors from amazon.

Really would appreciate everyone input on this, im stuck as I just cant afford to spend hundreds yet I need this data, its all our memories.

Please help

 

[Deleted member 14196]

Well it looks like you’re going to need two new hard drives of the same size but the failed ones are and rebuild your array

 

[gavlar0]

I can only rebuild that way with one failed disk, on Raid 5 you can only loose one. I have to do this using recovery software of which there are loads but the issue I have is connecting the disks to my laptop

 

[Satan-IR]

If the drives spin up and are readable maybe the problem is with the NAS box?

I don't know how many USB ports your laptop has but maybe you can get 2 of those SATA/USB disk bays/docks like these that can host/support 2 HDDs each.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

In that case your raid is dead and not recoverable by you. send out the drives to a recovery place. and you should’ve had a back up of all your important data. Let this be a lesson learned

 

[Satan-IR]

Didn't see the post about recovery software while I was typing the other one. If that's the case, and two drives are gone, most probably you won't be able to recover data and rebuilt that array unfortunately.

You said drives "spin and are readable". I'd check them outside the NAS connected to a PC or the laptop via USB adapters/docks.

 

[hang-the-9]

Hello, I need your help please, I have had two out of 4 hard drives fail, they were in a raid 5 configuration, the drives still spin up and are readable but my NAS wont recognise them.

I want to rebuild the raid using software (unless there is a cheaper way of doing it?)

I want to use my laptop to run the process but im trying to find the cheapest way of being able to see the disks all at once. There are several options ive looked at from buying a desktop machine to sata - usb adaptors from amazon.

Really would appreciate everyone input on this, im stuck as I just cant afford to spend hundreds yet I need this data, its all our memories.

Please help

RAID is not a backup method, it is only useful for when a drive dies and you need to restore the system to usable quickly, like when you are running a company and need to get a system running fast. Backups are copying the files to another drive or cloud storage so when the local computer has issues you can grab them.

It is not trivial to recover from a RAID setup, there is plenty of resources available online, just do a web search, nothing really new we can get you.
Rebuilding the raid with two failed drives, will get you a clean RAID setup, but without your files. If this is your only place you have the files on you will probably need to find a data recovery place to get the data out.

I just have been using Google Photos to store my pictures/videos, pretty automatic backups from a phone and can be setup same way on any computer. Along with having 2 external drives for backups in general.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

i keep all my stuff in onedrive, mirrored to external drive. if they blow up--who cares.... it's in the cloud
with an Office 365 yearly subscription you get 1TB OneDrive space. I pay $99 bucks a yr only because I have a 5 user license pack so each user gets 1TB. all our systems are set up like that. Nobody loses anything. We just get new hardware and sync.

A single user license isn't really that much, and I love Office for my documentation needs, I know LibreOffice is great and others too, but MS is still my fav.... plus... 1TB OneDrive space per user.

 

[S Haran]

First if this is high value data you should seek help from a pro as it is possible to make matters worse with failed DIY data recovery attempts.

With a four drive RAID5 you only need three drives for recovery. I do a lot of remote NAS/RAID data recovery work and advise clients to use any old 64bit capable computer with 1GB of memory. You can pick up an old Dell for $50 on ebay.

USB, although it could work in theory, is not well suited for data recovery work. You will be avoiding a lot of possible problems if you connect the RAID member drives to SATA ports for the recovery work.

If you give the model name of the NAS I can comment further.

 

[drxian666]

great answer. the most relevant here.
I'm wondering is there a decent open-source Linux based raid reconstructor for NAS raids with hardware problems in the NAS itself rather than with the disks?