I know how RAID work and prevent data lost from disks failures. I want to know is possible way/how easy to recover data from unfunctioned remaining RAID disks due to RAID controller failure or whole system failure. Can I even simply attach one of the RAID 1 disk to the desktop system and read as simple as USB disk? I know getting data from the other RAID types won’t be that simple but is there a way without building the whole RAID system again. Thanks.

  • @[email protected]English
    12•2 days ago
    1. RAID is never a replacement for backups.
    2. Never work directly with a surviving disk, clone it and work with the cloned drive.
    3. Are you sure you can’t rebuild the RAID? That really is the best solution in many cases.
    4. If a RAID failure is within tolerance (1 drive in a RAID5 array) then it should still be operational. Make a backup before rebuilding if you don’t have one already.
    5. If more disks are gone than that then don’t count on recovering all data even with data recovery tools.
    • r00ty
      3•2 days ago

      The OP made clear it was a controller failure or entire system (I read hardware here) failure. Which does complicate things somewhat.

      • @[email protected]English
        3•2 days ago

        Yeah, if there’s a full system failure without any backups and no option to get the system operational again then I would land in clone the drives before trying to restore data from them.