Server System Inventory Form


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Server System Inventory Form

Server System Inventory Form

Should hardware failures on more than one drive occur simultaneously, due to a power surge, mechanical failure, or controller card failure or a plethora of other events, the logical volumes will be "lost" along with access to the data. Due to the nature of the RAID 5, all of the drives contain a parody or copy of the original array on one third of its available space. This is what allows a rebuild if only one drive fails. This is the most critical point in safely managing a RAID data recovery as the technician in charge has to decide what to do in case of a 2 or more drive failure. Since the data is no doubt extremely sensitive and expensive his or her job likely depends on what they do next.

If Your RAID 5 Drops 2 or More Disks

If your RAID has a physical or logical malfunction some controller cards will error and force a drop of a second disk which will cause a complete failure of the array. It is unusual, but not unheard of, for 2 drives to fail at the same time. Whatever the cause of the failure you will find that you have no access to the logical volume and if the OS was contained on that it will no longer even boot. You will have to decide if:

  • Is the Data Worth Recovering?
  • Is There a Backup?
  • Can you Replace the Data from Hardcopy?
  • Is Data Recovery an Option or a Requirement?

Take Inventory of Your Data

Most commercially used arrays are in service for a particular reason, storing essential data of an exact sort, so you will probably know immediately what was lost. However, if the RAID was a file server, there may be duplicate files on PC’s connected to it. Take a look at the server logs if you are unsure, but make sure that you test the files for date, functionality, and content before restoring them to your file server.