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PDR / The jobs we take in / Striped RAID 0 sets

Specialist · striped RAID 0 sets

RAID 0 recovery in Plymouth. Two disks, one volume, nothing held in reserve; lose a member and the set stops.

Most RAID 0 work here arrives as a two-bay desktop box or a small NAS that was set striped for the capacity and left that way. The set writes your files in alternating blocks across the members and keeps neither parity nor a mirror, so one failed disk takes the volume with it. What is on the platters is still there, in pieces. Every member is cloned read-only, the block order and stripe size are measured off those copies, and the volume goes back together over the images. Sets reach the bench by post from Plymouth, Devon and Cornwall, and your own disks come home unwritten to.

Nothing readable? Most jobs carry no bill Free diagnosis, then one written price Boxes come to the lab from Truro, Newquay and Tavistock

You will be talking to an engineer
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RAID 0 symptoms, and what each points to.

Yours not here? Start at the triage →
What shows upWhat that points toWhat to do
Both disks spin but nothing mountsOne member of the stripe has stopped and there is no second copySend every member in
A NAS disk has dropped out of the setWith no parity behind it, the striped volume goes offline as wellPower the box down before anything
The box asks to create the volumeAgreeing writes new stripe metadata over the old orderDecline it and go no further
One member clicks, the other is quietThat disk's heads are failing and each retry costs moreUnplug the enclosure now
Windows marks the volume FailedA member left the set; the disks themselves are usually soundDo not reactivate or import it
Recovery software was run on one diskA single member yields fragments of files, never filesSend them all and name the tool
Getting it to us: wrap it so nothing can shift, cover it for what it is worth, and post it tracked to the intake lab in Bristol. We cover the postage back. If you want an engineer to check the packing before the box is taped, ring first. It is spelled out on the contact page.

What a striped set does to your files.

Two-bay desktop unitsThe mains-powered boxes sold on capacity, and often striped in the factory so the larger figure can go on the label. One volume, two disks, nothing spare. Send the pair and the enclosure, because several of them stripe through their own board.
NAS boxes set to RAID 0A two- or four-bay Synology or QNAP will run striped quite happily if that is what was chosen at setup, usually for the capacity. Linux software RAID underneath it means the layout rides on the members, so the chassis can stay where it is.
RST, Windows and mdadmMotherboard striping through Intel RST, a Windows striped volume or Storage Spaces, an mdadm array on Linux, or Disk Utility on a Mac: each writes its own description of the set onto the disks. All of them can be read from images and none of them needs the original machine back. What they share is that a missing member halts the lot.
Why there is no rebuildIn RAID 5 or 6 a rebuild reads the survivors and works the absent disk out from parity. RAID 0 carries no parity, so there is nothing to work anything out from. What a menu calls a rebuild on a striped set is a new volume written over the old one. Recovery happens on copies instead, and copies do not mind how often you press it.

What happens to a drive while it is here.

Cases in the log →
01

A number on arrival, then the free diagnosis Free

Whatever arrives is booked in under a case number on the day it reaches the bench. An engineer then works out the actual fault, and that part is free. You get a plain answer on what can come off the drive and what cannot, followed by one price in writing. Nothing further happens until you have read it and agreed.

Diagnosis at no chargeA single written figureYou owe nothing yet
02

Each member imaged on its own

Every disk is read behind a write blocker and copied in full before a file is opened, the healthy ones alongside the one that stopped. Awkward areas are taken in short passes and left until last. Your originals are never written to.

Your disks are read onlyImaged one member at a time
03

Stripe geometry measured

Three unknowns decide whether a striped volume comes back: which member came first, how big each block is, and where on the disk the stripe begins. All three are read out of the images — from metadata where the box wrote any, and from the shape of your own files where it did not.

Stripe order provedMeasured, never assumed
04

The volume assembled over copies

With the geometry settled, the set is put together on top of the images and the file system repaired there. Files are then opened rather than counted — photographs, video, project folders — because a name in a listing proves nothing. Anything that comes back damaged is listed as damaged.

Every file opened and checkedDamaged ones listed as damaged
05

You give the word, and it ships back

Thinking it over costs you nothing. Everything the drive gave up is listed for you before any invoice exists, and the bill only follows your go-ahead. Files travel back on media bought in for your job, with return carriage paid at this end, and the case stays on the bench until you confirm they open on your own computer.

You see the list and decideWritten to fresh mediaWe pay the postage home

The faults we see most

  • RAID 0 keeps nothing in reserve — the striping buys capacity and speed, and the price of both is that the set is only as good as its poorest member. Two disks striped are roughly twice as likely to stop you as one disk working alone.
  • Say no when the box offers to create the volume — the prompt appears because the enclosure can no longer read its own configuration, which is the symptom rather than the cause. Agreeing writes a fresh layout across the disks, and on some models a new file system with it. That is a second fault laid over the first.
  • One member on its own is not half your data — it is alternate blocks of everything, which is a different and far less useful thing. Every disk in the set has to come in, with the bay it sat in written on it, and the ones still reading perfectly are the most useful of the lot.
  • The enclosure's own repair tools are not for this — scan and repair, initialise, format: each of them writes. On a striped volume that has already lost a member, writing is the one thing that takes options away.

The honest limits of this: storage is all we handle. Striped sets are what this page covers — two or more disks in a desktop box, a NAS, a motherboard controller or a software array under Windows or Linux — and they arrive failed, dropped, formatted or deleted. Where every member can be read, the volume is assembled over the copies and the folders come back arranged as you had them. What cannot be done is conjure blocks off a surface with nothing left to read: a stripe with a hole in it returns files with holes in them, and you are told which ones. Nor does anything survive being written over. We do not take phones or tablets. The free diagnosis settles which of those you are looking at.

A job out of the casebook.

PL · PLY-2026-0846LOGGED ✓

A two-bay desktop unit, striped from new, one member down

A boatyard office on the Cattewater sent in a two-bay unit that had stopped mounting. The disks inside were striped, so no whole file sat on either of them. Head damage on one; the second read without complaint. Each was cloned in full, the damaged one over three passes on a matched head stack. The striped volume went back together above those images. Block size and disk order came out of the copies. Fifteen years of laminating schedules and tooling drawings went home on a new drive, in the folders the box had them in.

Both members imaged separately3 days start to finish

Before you seal the box.

Get these done

  • Take it off power and leave it off
  • Send every disk in the set, not just the failed one
  • Label every disk with its bay before it leaves the box
  • Tell us the make of box and whether anything has been re-created

What to avoid

  • Letting the box create the volume again
  • Reactivating a failed volume in Windows
  • Running repair tools against the members
  • Sending one disk and holding the rest

Questions that come up most weeks.

One disk died. Why do you need the other one?

Because a striped set writes in alternating blocks, so no single member holds a complete anything. Take the survivor on its own and you get the first block of a photograph, a gap, then the third block. The disk that stopped is carrying every other piece. Both come in, both are imaged, and each file is put back together from the two copies. Send every member of the set with the bay it sat in written on it, and the enclosure as well if it is a desktop unit.

My NAS is offering to re-create the volume. Should I?

No. A striped set holds nothing in reserve, so there is nothing for the box to work from and create means what it says. It writes a fresh description of the array, and on plenty of models lays a new file system on top for good measure. The old block order goes with it, and that order is half of what we work from. Take the power out of the enclosure and let the images settle what is there. Once copies exist, nothing you press afterwards can reach them.

Do you need the enclosure, or only the disks inside it?

Send the disks; the box is useful rather than essential. A two-bay desktop unit often stripes through its own bridge board, and where that board also encrypts, it has to travel with the disks or there is nothing to decode with. A NAS is a different matter: Synology and QNAP write Linux software RAID, so the description travels on the members and the chassis can stay on your desk. Motherboard striping behaves the same way. If you are unsure which you have, send the lot and tell us what the front panel is showing. Nothing about the layout gets guessed at over the phone.

Both disks read fine on their own. Where are my files?

Spread across the pair in blocks, which is why neither shows a file system worth mounting. A striped volume needs three things settled before it comes back: which member came first, how large each block is, and where on the disks the stripe begins. All three are read out of the images, since the shape of your own data gives them away, and the volume is then assembled over the copies. Disks that look empty one at a time usually come back complete.

Pages people open after this.

A halted server → MacBook Air storage → More than one disk → All the media we take →

A drive that stays switched off gets no worse.

The diagnosis is free, and it comes back as a list: which files read, which do not, and what getting them off would take. Until then, leave the drive unplugged.

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