RAID 1 Failure and Recovery

RAID 1 employs data mirroring by duplicating the data across disks in the array. As a result, you get full data redundancy as no data loss happens until its duplicated disk is healthy. The total capacity of such arrays is equal to that of smallest disk in the array. In classic RAID 1 example, when only two hard drives are used, the reliability geometrically increases over a single hard disk. But at times, you observe RAID 1 as failed with no access to data. In such situations, RAID Data Recovery service proves as effective solution to extract lost data (if no valid backup is available or is not updated).

RAID 1 Failure in Ideal Conditions

RAID 1 fails when both hard drives storing same data get failed. To evaluate RAID 1 failure rate in ideal conditions, consider that you are using RAID 1 with two identical hard drives, each with 5% chances that it will fail in three years. Assuming that these failures are independent of each other, the chances of both hard drives failing is calculated as 0.25%. But, these are ideal set of conditions, where the hard drives are exactly identical and failures are independent of each other. When applied to real world conditions, the data loss probability goes higher than 0.25%.

Causes of RAID 1 Failure

RAID 1 fails unexpectedly if any of the below incident takes place:

• Natural calamities, like fire, flood, tornadoes, earthquakes etc.
• Unsuccessful RAID 1 backup
• Rebuild failure
• File system corruption
• RAID 1 controller failure
• Array corruption due to virus
• Operating system failure

RAID Recovery Services

It is the technical aid provided to recover and restore lost data from crashed RAIDs. Such Hard Disk Recovery services are offered by prominent data recovery companies, where experts firstly securitize the failed hard drives in safe surroundings of Clean Rooms to determine the cause of failure. Based upon their observations, amount of recoverable data is evaluated. RAID Data Recovery experts follow highly technical procedures, like replacing or repairing hard disk internals, rebuilding arrays, taking disk images, and others such.