• Data Recovery: 877-624-7206
  • Forensics: 608-287-3377
  • Client Login
Gillware horizontal logo with white boxesGillware horizontal logo with white boxesGillware horizontal logo with white boxesGillware horizontal logo with white boxes
  • Data Recovery
    • Data Loss Situations
    • All Data Recovery Services
    • RAID Data Recovery Services
    • Data Recovery Lab
    • Hard Drive Repair
    • Flash Storage Data Recovery Services
  • Digital Forensics
    • What is Digital Forensics?
    • Mobile Forensics
    • Computer Forensics
    • HDD, SSD, SD Card, USB Flash Drive Forensics
    • Broken Device Forensics
    • JTAG / Chip Off Forensics
    • Expert Testimony
    • eDiscovery
  • Incident Response
    • Ransomware Response
    • HIPAA Incident Response
    • Data Breach Incident Response
  • Risk Management
  • Resources
    • Blog
    • FAQ
    • Guides, Whitepapers, Case Studies
    • Gillware Partnership Program Center
    • RecoverBot Data Recovery Tool
    • Support Tool
      • Download for Windows
      • Download for Mac
  • About
    • The Gillware Story
    • The Gillware Team
    • Data Recovery Lab
    • Careers
    • Contact Us
  • Get your data
  • Instant Quote
RAID 5 Video Demonstration: Salvaging Data with a Stale Drive
June 20, 2016
IOmega device detected
Data Recovery Throwback: IBM DSOA-21080 and the Missing Screenplay
June 21, 2016

Power Surge Data Recovery Case Study: Synology RAID-5 NAS Device

June 21, 2016

This failed NAS device came to us from a nearby small business located in Fond du Lac. Their Synology DiskStation DS 1512+ NAS device had failed after a power surge. Inside their DiskStation was a 5-drive RAID-5 array. This NAS device was the only backup of their files they had. Without it, all they could do was sit on their hands. Nothing is more frustrating for an owner or the employees of a small business. Fortunately, our power surge data recovery experts were on the case.

Synology DiskStation DS1512+ Power Surge Data Recovery Case

Synology DiskStation DS1512+


Data Recovery Case Study: Power Surge in Synology NAS Device
RAID Level: 5
Total Capacity: 12 TB
NAS Model: Synology DiskStation DS 1512+
Operating System: Windows
Situation: Two drives in NAS device RAID-5 failed after a power surge
Type of Data Recovered: Business-related graphics and photos
Binary Read: 100%
Gillware Data Recovery Case Rating: 10


NAS devices are useful tools for small businesses. “NAS” stands for “network-attached storage”. Since these devices plug into a wireless router via ethernet cable, anybody with network access can use the NAS device as if it were attached directly to their computer. A single NAS device can provide terabytes of storage space for many people.

This graphic design business used the RAID-5 array they’d set up on their NAS device to store graphic design files and photos. RAID-5 is a popular way to arrange a set of hard drives to act as a single storage device. Using special parity data, RAID-5 provides fault tolerance in case one of the drives in the array fails. However, if more than one drive in the array fails, the RAID-5 crashes.

Power Surge Data Recovery

A power surge can cause hard drive failure in many ways. One of the most common ways is that the PCB on the back of the drive can get burned out. A sudden spike or loss of power can also cause the hard drive’s mechanical components to become damaged.

Our engineers inspected the hard drives pulled from the Synology NAS device. Of the two drives that had failed, one had suffered severe damage to its platters. The power surge had caused the drive’s magnetic read/write heads to accidentally touch the surfaces of the spinning platters. The read/write heads gouged out large swaths of the magnetic coating on the platters. We refer to this type of platter damage as rotational scoring.

The magnetic coating on each platter of a hard drive contains its data. If any of that coating is scraped off, the data it stored cannot be restored. All rotational scoring results in some irretrievable data loss. Severe enough rotational scoring renders a hard drive unsalvageable.

Rebuilding the RAID-5

Fortunately, a RAID-5 array can function minus one hard drive due to its parity data. Our power surge data recovery engineers had to get as good of a forensic image of the other failed drive as possible.
The other failed hard drive ran rough at first, but our cleanroom data recovery engineers were eventually able to get it into good shape. With full drive images of four of the five hard drives, the case was handed off to our RAID engineer Cody.

When Cody gets his hands on a RAID case, the first thing he does is check the metadata on each hard drive. Putting a RAID back together after it’s been in the cleanroom is a puzzle. The RAID controller inside any NAS device knows how to solve this puzzle. By reading the metadata, the controller knows how the hard drives have to be arranged. If the hard drives didn’t have all this metadata, everything on them would be indecipherable. RAID-5 chops up all of the data the user creates into little stripes. These stripes are typically around 64 kilobytes in size and are spread across all the hard drives.

If the hard drives in a RAID-5 aren’t put together in the right order, anything larger than the stripe size gets rearranged. Since many people have important files larger than 64 kilobytes, getting the order right is very important.

Cody didn’t have the RAID controller for this NAS device. But for this power surge data recovery case, he didn’t need it. As is the case with our other RAID data recovery cases, all Cody needed was the metadata itself. Cody knew how to read this metadata just like a RAID controller does.

The results of this NAS data recovery case were excellent. One hard drive had been rendered completely useless by severe rotational scoring. But a full binary read on the other failed drive gave us all we needed to rebuild the RAID. This was a complete and full recovery.

A sudden power spike or power loss can have unpredictable effects on hard drives. The more hard drives you have, the more of a chance you have of one or more of them failing. In this power surge data recovery scenario, the NAS device’s single-drive fault tolerance wasn’t enough. But fortunately, our data recovery team was able to swiftly reunite this small business with its critical data.

Share
Will Ascenzo
Will Ascenzo
Will is the lead blogger, copywriter, and copy editor for Gillware Data Recovery and Digital Forensics, and a staunch advocate against the abuse of innocent semicolons.

Related posts

January 15, 2019

“This is a NAS data disk and cannot boot system” Error Message


Read more
A crashed Synology storage pool

A crashed Synology storage pool can be difficult to repair; you may need help from a professional lab to recover your data.

December 19, 2018

Synology Storage Pool Crashed or Degraded: What Do You Do?


Read more
Synology DiskStation DS214+ flashing blue power light
April 4, 2018

Case Study: Synology DS214+ with Flashing Blue Power Light


Read more

Contact Us

  • Your Data Recovery Experts
  • Headquarters
  • 1802 Wright Street Madison, WI 53704
  • Toll Free: 1-877-624-7206
  • Local: 1-608-237-8780
  • gillware@gillware.com
  • View Our Other Locations
  • Press Kit
  • Data Recovery Social Channels
  •         
  • Digital Forensics Social Channels
  •      

Our Services

  • Home
  • Data Recovery Services
  • Digital Forensics Services
  • Risk Management Services
  • Partner Program Center
  • Customer Login
  • Contact Us

Recent Posts

  • Incident Response Planning 101: Simplification and Preparation are Key
  • 7 Most Frequently-Asked Questions About Data Recovery
  • Data Manipulation: A rising trend in cyberattacks, and how to address it.
  • Inaccessible Hard Drive Recovery Case Study: Boot Device Missing
  • Boot Device Not Found: What It Means and How to Fix It