Actidata NAS Recovery

NAS Data recovery: Actidata

Actidata NAS systems are popular because of their relatively low maintenance effort. This is also why they are often used in small and medium-size enterprises as well as in private households. Aside from 1-bay NAS devices, the hard drives inside the NAS can be interconnected to a RAID array. Actidata 2-bay NAS devices with RAID 1 (mirror) and RAID 0 (stripe) configuration are the most common. RAID 5 configuration (3 hard drives or more) is used with Actidata 4-bay NAS servers. Some 4-bay NAS devices even allow RAID 6 (4 hard drives or more). From RAID level 1 onwards, access to the data is still possible and data security is granted even after the failure of one hard drive. With RAID 6 two HDDs may drop out. If several hard drives fail at the same time due to mechanical or electronic defects, data loss is predestined.

Possible causes for NAS hard drive failures

There is a variety of reasons for failed hard drives in Actidata NAS systems:

Wear and tear of the hard drive

Generally speaking, NAS systems operate non-stop, even though the contained hard drives are often not optimized for long term usage. Frequent write- and read-operations can cause normal wear and tear to occur much sooner than expected and lead to a failure of one or more hard drives. Wear and tear is one of the most common reasons for failure or defects of physical or electronic hard drives components.

Incorrect handling

Sometimes Actidata NAS can already suffer damages on their route of transport caused by incorrect handling or physical influences (drop, shock, heavy vibrations). These can negatively influence the life span of the integrated hard drives and can lead to mechanical defects (write-/read-heads, surface damages).

Electronic damages caused by over-voltage

If a Actidata NAS is non-stop operating, this also means that it needs a continuous power supply. In case of a storm or lightning, over-voltage based damages on the NAS itself or the hard drives can occur. Another scenario are wrong or defective power supplies, that can cause over-voltage.

Thermal factors

Actidata NAS can overheat very quickly, if not properly cooled. Hard drives are very prone to damages caused by temperature fluctuations (material expansion, change of the height of the air cushion). This can result in grave mechanical defects.

Other causes for data loss of Actidata NAS

Lost data after a firmware update

Actidata provides the latest firmware updates for their NAS servers. The administrator gets notified via the web interface that a new firmware version for his Actidata NAS is available. In some cases, the firmware update can lead to a loss of data.

Deleted RAID configuration of the Actidata NAS

When configuring a new RAID set-up (e. g. RAID 0 to RAID 1), the previous configuration of the NAS will be deleted, the hard drives formatted and a new volume and file system created. Thereby all shares or files will be deleted. Additionally, if new data is being saved onto the NAS, the previous raw data gets gradually overwritten.

Damage limitation with Actidata NAS systems

• No restarts, rebuilds or chkdsk! That may have fatal consequences.

• Avoid new installations and don't save new data on the NAS.

• Remove the hard drives from the Actidata NAS and label them with their correct slot position.

• Tell us the exact model name of your NAS, the capacity of the hard drives and the NAS system configuration.