Recovering a Wrecked RAID

Dr. Eggman writes "Tom's Hardware recently posted an article specifying how the professionals at Kroll Ontrack recover data from a RAID array that has suffered a hard drive failure, allowing for recovery of even RAID 5 arrays suffering two failures. The article is quick to warn this is costly, however, and points out the different types of hard drive failures that occur, only some of which are repairable. Ultimately the article concludes that consistent backups and other good practices are the best solution. Still, it provides an interesting look into the world of data after death."

Comments

Re:RAID5.

[networkBoy]

For DB's and home use a mirror set is usually best. For homes because it is simple, for DB servers because it is fast.
My home setup is a pair of 300 gig drives in a mirror, with another 1.6TB for other storage. Stuff that is important is on the mirror, and is differentially backed up to DVD regularly.
Stuff on the mass array is available in original form (my DVD and CD library that's been ripped) or is backed up whenever it changes, which is not often (my code library, for example). Active code and my wife's thesis are on the raid. Supporting documents for the thesis are on DVD and mass storage, as is old code projects that I may borrow from for functionality in a new project. The old project (and likely several versions of it) are off on DVD in a safe deposit box, with the rest of my backups.

Safe deposit boxes are awesome. I have one that can store 600 cds in cake boxes and it only costs $120/year. Dirt cheap for climate controlled fireproof storage.
-nB

Re:RAID5.

[drinkypoo]

RAID 50? Why not RAID 10? If you're already mirroring, the RAID 5 will probably not afford you much additional protection, and it has the effect of making writes slower.

Long-winded advertisement^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H article.

[QuietLagoon]

It takes far too many pages to say what could actually fit in a page or two.

FOR THE LAST FREAKIN' TIME...

[canUbeleiveIT]

Never put all of your eggs in one little basket (RAID or otherwise)! For the love of God, if your data is critical, you need a backup *and* an offsite backup. At least one of each. There are no exceptions to this rule.

Re:FOR THE LAST FREAKIN' TIME...

[BagOBones]

I agree they must be replaced ASAP. However I don't keep drives on hand when my vendor can get a new disk to my desk within 4 hours of my call at no charge.

Software RAID

[Kludge]

People often poopoo software RAID (it is more of a pain to manage). But when it comes to recovery, it's what you want. You know the disk format and have the tools. Of course, you really shouldn't have to recover, you should keep good backups or another mirror if its that important.

Gotta love Tom's articles

[sjbe]

Could these articles be any more annoying to read?

They painstakingly

NEXT PAGE

pull data

NEXT PAGE

off the

NEXT PAGE

damaged drive

Printer Friendly

[TubeSteak]

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/02/14/raid_recove ry/print.html

I don't know why TH has printer friendly pages that they don't ever link to.

IntelliTXT too

[Skadet]

Yeah, between that and IntelliTXT, I pretty much gave up.

What if your hard drive decides to enter the Elysian Fields in this very moment? Sure, you could simply get a new hard drive to substitute for the defective one with a quick run to your favorite hardware store. And with last night's backup you might even reconstruct your installation quickly. But what if you don't have a backup? We have experienced the truth to be more like this: many users don't even have a backup, or it simply is too old and thus useless for recovering any useful files at all. In case of real hard drive damage, only a professional data recovery specialist can help you - say bye-bye to your vacation savings!

Anyone remember when Tom's Hardware was good?

Re:IntelliTXT too

[operagost]

Besides dedicating only about 10% of the page to actual content, the grammar is actually even worse than it used to be. Don't they have any native English-speaking editors?

Re:RAID5.

[jandrese]

Guys, if you're doing regular backups and have a cold spare handy then RAID5 is typically more than enough. Two drive failures are exceedingly rare unless you have some sort of controller fault (and that will typically hit all of your drives anyway). Don't forget about the write penalty either, RAID 5 has a fairly stiff penalty, but RAID 6 is even worse. If you're talking about RAID5_0 or RAID6_0 you're almost certainly doing it wrong or planning for a day when you can't buy replacement hard drives (nuclear holocaust?).

To put it another way: What do you think your chances are of having a second drive failure in the few hours it takes you to replace the drive and rebuild it? Even if that does happen you just lose the data up until your last backup (a day at most).

Most professional installations I do are RAID1_0, because people are building the RAID array for the performance, not the cost. Since you're using crappy 80GB HDDs, I'm guessing you're going for cost, which makes it strange that you're thinking about a RAID6_0 solution at all (the controller alone won't be cheap for that). If you work the odds I think you'll find that it's just not worth it to build a RAID6_0, especially given the write penalty and complexity (complexity is your enemy with this, complexity means bugs, which can undermine your entire effort).

Gibson the Hack

[spun]

SpinRite is a Steve Gibson product. Steve Gibson is a pompous blowhard with few real skills. There are plenty of other ways to do a low level copy of a disk.