A business-critical server down with multiple disk failures - recovered on an expedited, round-the-clock basis.
A manufacturing business lost the server its entire operation ran on. The array was an eight-disk RAID 6, which is designed to tolerate two simultaneous disk failures — but a third disk had failed, tipping it past the point the parity could cover, and the whole array went offline. With production effectively stopped and every hour costing the business money, this was handled as an emergency: an expedited, priority recovery run around the clock rather than in the normal queue.
We assessed all eight disks at once. Several were failing to differing degrees, which is common when an array reaches this point — the disks are often of the same age and batch and begin to give out together. With three disks down on a dual-parity array there was no margin left, so the priority was to recover as much as possible from every struggling disk, because the more complete each image, the more the parity could do to fill the gaps.
Every member disk was imaged individually and, to save time, several were imaged in parallel. The failing disks were imaged on DeepSpar Disk Imagers to recover the maximum from drives that were on their last legs, with the PC3000 handling firmware-level faults. From the images we recovered the RAID 6 parameters — the stripe size, the order of the disks and the way the two sets of parity were rotated across them — and reconstructed the array in software, using the dual parity to rebuild the data that the weakest disks couldn't fully supply. Reconstructing from images, never the original disks, meant there was no risk of the recovery itself causing further loss.
From the reconstructed array we confirmed the full file system, including the production databases the business depended on, was complete and opened correctly, then returned it on fresh media.
The complete file system was recovered and returned within 48 hours of the disks reaching us, getting the business back up and running. The episode is a stark reminder that even a resilient array has its limits: when disks share an age and a batch they can fail in quick succession, so a current off-array backup — and acting the moment the first disk fails rather than waiting — is what stands between a scare and a disaster.
DeepSpar DDI · PC3000 — imaging and recovery carried out in-house. Every job is imaged before any recovery work begins, and the original media is never written to.
Send us your device for a free diagnostic, and tell us a little about what happened — an engineer will review it and confirm your exact quote in writing before any work begins.
Recovering your data starts with getting the device to us. Pack it safely, add your contact details, and send it over — after we run a free diagnostic, we’ll confirm your exact price in writing before any work begins.
Posting it in? We recommend a tracked, insured service. Prefer to drop it off? You’re welcome Monday–Friday, 9am–5:30pm — please still package the device as above.
If you need more information on our data recovery service, fill out the form with more detail about your issue and an engineer will review it and give you a custom quote.
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Yes — any level, controller or failed rebuild. We image every member disk read-only, recover the parameters, and reconstruct the array virtually from the copies.
From £500 plus VAT, no fix, no fee on most jobs, with a fixed quote up front; emergency, round-the-clock service is available.
No. A failed rebuild is the most common cause of permanent loss. Stop, remove the drives labelled with their bay order, and send them to us.
Start with an instant online quote, or call and talk it through with us first. You'll have a clear, fixed price before any work begins.