Getting data off the drives of a dead NAS

[Crackle]

Aren't you always?

I see it's Raid 1. Both disks ought to be a mirror image of each other. If you put the disks into another NAS set up as Raid 1 or a PC which can be set to Raid 1 (the OS will need to be on a separate disk!) it should be reasonably straight forward to recover your data. Assuming that it's the NAS controller that died - which seems to be the case. Buy another NAs and shove the disks into that? (And back it up onto an external hdd this time!)

I did back it up. It's on two mirrored disks!

I'm not sure if I need another SAN. Both boys off to Uni, Mrs C said last night, what SAN? So I'm the only one who really used it and I didn't find it that useful over my previous backup regime and clearly am not finding it at all useful now!

As for RAID, well it's possible if I bought another SAN from Zyxel I could do that but RAID is not universally implemented in the same way, nor do I have a RAID card lying around ready to go in PC, so it's all a bit of a pain in the arse.

Anyway, just about to kick off doing it all.

 

[MossCommuter]

p.s. I was a bit pissed when I wrote this last night and I would like to say that not all IT tarts, are necessarily tarts.

Rich, if you are interested in learning more about the vital service that we "IT tarts" supply day-to-day I can heartily recommend the work of the modern documentary genius that is Graham Linehan and his series of short, fly of the wall pieces; "The IT Crowd"

 

[Jason]

This was also my thoughts, it sounds like it's the motherboard in the Nas enclosure itself which is gone. So surely that will have zero affect on the data stored on the harddrives themselves.

Just plugging them into a new NAS enclosure should enable you to access the data with minimal fuss.

Agree with this ^^^
Both disks and the RAID controller hold the metadata to form the Raidset, Buy another NAS and plug ONLY those two disks into it. The config from the disks will form the the same RAID 1 set, as they have quorum, and you can read the data from the good drive. Probably best to go with the same manufacturer as RAID controllers from different makes will have different firmware and may throw up anomalies.

 

[Sea of vapours]

I did back it up. It's on two mirrored disks!

Ummm...... but RAID arrays are for availability and/or performance, not backup - the fact that one disk in a RAID 1 array is a backup of the other is incidental and, as you've found, doesn't make the best of backup solutions!

Putting them both into a NAS from the same manufacturer is cerrainly the easiest and most reliable option, though if you do damage one trying to get the data off, a single one will /probably/ rebuild a pair in a new NAS by itself (in combination with a new, blank drive that is).

 

[Crackle]

Ummm...... but RAID arrays are for availability and/or performance, not backup - the fact that one disk in a RAID 1 array is a backup of the other is incidental and, as you've found, doesn't make the best of backup solutions!

Putting them both into a NAS from the same manufacturer is cerrainly the easiest and most reliable option, though if you do damage one trying to get the data off, a single one will /probably/ rebuild a pair in a new NAS by itself (in combination with a new, blank drive that is).

I know: Absolutely no need to remind me of my failure to appreciate this. Well maybe there is but sometimes you don't see the blindingly obvious. I did actually have a hdd attached for backup but it wasn't big enough and I hadn't got around to sorting that.

Anyway, I'm in!

It took me some time to figure out why mdadm wouldn't work but once I did it mounted the RAID1 disk and all data is available under /mnt

I'm now going to attach an external drive, copy some data off and examine it. But first a coffee.........

 

[MossCommuter]

w00t

 

[Crackle]

This sounds good news, I think.

It is.

Most data now off. I had less than a hundred Gb of unique data. The rest was backups of backups. Of the unique data I actually had copies of most of that on two other disks and bits copied online. So it wouldn't quite have been the disaster I imagined in my nightmare scream scenario when it first went poof.

This is the 2nd time that CC has come to my rescue, we may be just a cycling forum but there are some all round knowledgable people on here. Special thanks to @Nigel-YZ1 who found that article in the Zyxel knowledge base that even the reluctantly helpful Marcel couldn't find, he sent me something else. I'm about to send him the link back to help him out if someone else contacts him.

Now to think about whether I need a new SAN and what to do with two fat 1Gb mirrored disks.........

Edit: 1Tb not 1Gb, duh!

 

[Crackle]

Dog frisbees?

Only if I want to knock his teeth out.

Oh and I'm becoming more and more impressed with Ubuntu. A lot of it is more familiar than I realized as I did a Unix course a long time ago and once you get to the Terminal it's pretty similar.

 

[MacB]

[QUOTE 4937904, member: 259"]Have you tried compacting the data with a steamroller?[/QUOTE]

I know Crax is brain dead but you have to be fully dead for that one.

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

It worked and I was desperate.

I'm a bit more"old skool" in that violence rather than negative social media feedback is my go-to position

 

[Crackle]

I'm a bit more"old skool" in that violence rather than negative social media feedback is my go-to position

I was snarling and spitting when I typed my reply if that helps?

 

[irw]

[QUOTE 4937904, member: 259"]Have you tried compacting the data with a steamroller?[/QUOTE]

I believe the term is 'compressing the data'. You could also try defragmenting it with a strong magnet to clean up all the stray 1's.

Edited to add for the benefit of non-IT literate people...please do not actually do this!

 

[Crackle]

Agree with this ^^^
Both disks and the RAID controller hold the metadata to form the Raidset, Buy another NAS and plug ONLY those two disks into it. The config from the disks will form the the same RAID 1 set, as they have quorum, and you can read the data from the good drive. Probably best to go with the same manufacturer as RAID controllers from different makes will have different firmware and may throw up anomalies.

I asked about this and got an answer before. Basically they don't guarantee it will work even with their own product. The next generation replacement, as mine is phased out, uses a different RAID controller so may not initialize with those disks. Personally I think that's shoot but this is exactly how the IT industry works. Upgrade or die.

Anyway I'm finished. Until the next self-imposed crisis.

 

[RoubaixCube]

If youre interested.. I have a 2 year old synology NAS that needs a good home. It's not the most powerful or well spec'd unit in existence but it worked absolutely fine for me as a media server and a centralised file server while i had it. Model number is 216J (i think its 216j but it could be 213j also. At work atm so im unable to check) its had pretty light usage in general and its probably better than your zyxel while it was alive.

Let me know if you're interested. Comes boxed and everything.

 

[Crackle]

If youre interested.. I have a 2 year old synology NAS that needs a good home. It's not the most powerful or well spec'd unit in existence but it worked absolutely fine for me as a media server and a centralised file server while i had it. Model number is 216J (i think its 216j but it could be 213j also. At work atm so im unable to check) its had pretty light usage in general and its probably better than your zyxel while it was alive.

Let me know if you're interested. Comes boxed and everything.

Thanks. I'll have a think. I'm not sure if I'll go back down the NAS route, needs have changed etc... but appreciate the offer.