Data Recovery Digest

Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices are devices that provide a connection to a network. The role of them is to allow you to link multiple computers and share data easily. They are very popular, especially in workplaces, due to their simplicity and functionality. They a great, convenient way to boost the amount of storage space on offer to the entire network without the need for a host computer.

NAS devices offer multiple terabytes of storage. Losing all of your data can be a painful experience, but when you lose terabytes of it then it makes it even worse. Anything from a virus to a system failure could cause your NAS to fail and take down all of your data with it. As such, it is important to know what you should do when you need to recovery data from your NAS.

NAS devices are different to recover from than something like a USB or hard disk drive. They often employ internal RAID arrays in order to reach the high capacities that they offer, which make it a bit trickier to get back any lost data.

Most NAS devices use Linux, FreeBSD or other operating systems similar to UNIX. This means that they use a UNIX style file system. Before you attempt data recovery on a NAS, you must first connect it up to a computer. To do this you will need to disassemble the NAS and then remove the internal hard drive from inside. You should then connect the drive to an IDE or SATA port on your computer. This will allow you to run data recovery programs on it like you would a normal drive.

Something like DiskInternals Raid Recovery is a good program to use. This allows you to reconstruct your RAID with just as much ease as you would a single hard disk. As well as fixing the system structures, the program will also attempt to recover files and data from the NAS. Another program that you could try is R-Studio. However, bear in mind that this program doesn’t support all the UNIX file types. It would best to see which program supports the types of files that you need to recover. The good thing is that both of these pieces of software allow you to trial them before you lay down your cash. This allows you to see how effective they might be at getting your files back.

Another program, from Runtime Software, is NAS Data Recovery. This claims that it can recover the entire contents of a broken NAS within minutes. From here you can then copy the files over to another disk. The program works on a variety of RAID arrays and drive manufacturers. According to Runtime Software, there is no data recovery background needed to use the program as all parameters needed for recovery and automatically found.

Using NAS devices are great, but like all forms of data storage they are prone to failure. That is why it is important to back up all your data consistently, especially when you are storing large amounts of it.