East Hartford has struggled with high unemployment rates for years, but thanks to a dedicated team of data recovery experts, 15 jobs in East Hartford were saved after a weather-caused power surge threatened the loss of crucial stored data at the Popcorn Movie Posters Company located in East Hartford. This is a story of a successful RAID 5 data recovery case that saved a business from closing!
East Hartford printer gets back to work after successful data recovery
Proven Data Recovery experts were called in to help salvage critical data when the professional printing company’s Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) device was unexpectedly harmed in the surge.
RAID 5 devices are designed for data reliability, and many businesses rely on RAID 5 storage to maintain data for an entire network. In theory when one drive fails, you should be able to simply replace the failed drive a functional drive and rebuild the RAID. In this particular event, the RAID array was wiped out completely and no rebuilding was possible. This is a reminder why you should not rely on RAID as your complete backup solution.
Now, consider being the owner of a company like Popcorn Movies Posters, using a RAID-5 to protect irreplaceable art files upon which the company depends to fulfill its printing orders in order to stay in business. Disaster strikes suddenly, and next thing you know all your data is gone. Suddenly the ability to complete your printing orders and take in new orders grinds to a halt. There is no way your business can quickly and affordably replace all of the critical files lost.
There is a real human component to data loss, which has become more evident as the world has come to depend on technology to keep its files stored safely and permanently. When we were first called in to address the damage done to Popcorn Movies Company’s RAID-5 storage device, we understood the consequences of such a loss to the business’s owner and employees. The challenge was similar to other RAID recovery projects we had dealt with in the past—power surge wipes out the entire RAID, and the data is not accessible. We have to repair any damage to the drives, and reconstruct the RAID.
Proven Data Recovery experts from both our Hartford and New York City locations worked around the clock, including nights and weekends, until all the Popcorn Movie Company’s data was recovered. At a time when people are thankful just to have jobs and small businesses struggle to maintain profits, it’s a fulfilling task every time our engineers can step in and reunite our clients with their important data. In fact, it gives a whole new meaning to the adage, “Business as usual.”
Another successful RAID 5 data recovery case
Using specialized RAID data recovery equipment, the Proven Data Recovery team managed to perform server recovery techniques to restore the company’s data to its pre-fail state. It was important to determine which drive failed first; RAID systems depend on a complex calculation called an “exclusive” or binary operator to store redundant data. Some people might expect that with four disks full of data require an additional four disks to have a redundant copy, but the binary operator allows four disks to have their data redundantly stored on one disk.
However, this efficient use of storage space brings its own challenges to the table. With systems in which four disks are backed up by four additional disks, if you lose one you can simply look to another for its copy. In a RAID 5 system, the loss of one disk means having to run logical calculations to compare the remaining discs in order to determine the binary content of the failed drive. Adding to the conundrum, if the diagnosis of what drive failed first is incorrect, these calculations can give you old data or none at all.
Not until this analysis was made and the Proven Data Recovery team was able to make a correct diagnosis on the order in which the drive failure occurred could they begin to rebuild the code in the file system. RAID 5 data recovery is just one in a series of data recovery solutions that Proven Data Recovery offers to individuals and small businesses.
Recovering data requires a team of experts, from clean room engineers to code writers, in order to successfully recover data from a failed or damaged server. No matter how many data recoveries we perform each year, the excitement and satisfaction of recovering lost files never wanes, especially when the effort keeps a small business and its staff getting back to business as usual.
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