Recovering NAS automatically

Recovering NAS data using NAS data recovery software is the most convenient and straightforward approach. Generally, you need to

1. get the disks out of the NAS unit,
2. connect them separately to a PC,
3. launch NAS recovery software and get your NAS reconstructed,
4. copy the recovered NAS data to the prepared in advance disk space.

Significant advantage of automated recovery over manual is that the skill level required for the automated recovery does not increase as the problem gets worse. The same process is applied in all cases, and if it fails, you need to send the unit to the lab for expert analysis, because things which are out of reach for off-the-shelf software are typically also out of reach for the untrained person.

Getting disks out of the NAS is pretty straightforward, the only advice is to label disks according to their order in the NAS so that you can return to the original configuration in case of some problems.

As for the connection, preferably connect disks to SATA ports of the motherboard because it gives you speed and stability; however, if your motherboard lacks free SATA ports, you can use USB adapters.

There are quite a few NAS recovery software and you can have a look at this comparison to choose the appropriate one. We recommend you stick to the tools which are capable of recovering mdraid: ReclaiMe or ZAR NAS recovery software. While driver in Linux works only with the records perfectly correct, such tools are able to detect slightly damaged NAS metadata records and extract useful data from them.

One more thing you should keep in mind when choosing NAS data recovery software is compatibility of the software with your particular NAS vendor and model. For example, the latest generation NETGEAR end-user NASes use BTRFS filesystem, which not all NAS recovery software can recover.

You can copy the recovered NAS data to another NAS or to the external disks. Since in NAS recovery we are usually dealing with several terabytes of data, the copying step may take a long time.

Useful links

For more information on how to recover NAS data with ReclaiMe, please refer to the NAS data recovery page.

If you need the detailed instructions on how to do NAS recovery, please visit this site where each recovery step is illustrated with a photo.