Redundancy, or the "R" of RAID has made many IT Administrators assume that RAID data recovery is just not a necessary service. And why not? After all, over the past 20 years, RAID storage platforms have been the preferred selection of corporate environments, rightly seen to be the best the data storage industry has to offer. Ultra-important applications such as high-end database servers including SQL and Oracle and communication tools such as Exchange have all made use of the platform, which provide high speed access to data with a redundancy factor that makes backing up almost seem unnecessary.

The true danger of the RAID platform lies in its illusion of robustness, however. Thus far, it is definitely the best, and most configurable solution the data storage industry has to offer. Meanwhile, look at the essential building blocks of the RAID server and what do you see? Effectively, a RAID platform is simply a clutch of hard drives linked to each other - with each hard drive merely a mechanical device, different although at its core still the same kind of structure as a hard disk from 20 years ago. As of this writing, there is no serious non-mechanical hard drive available (solid state drives make the attempt, of course, but remain very susceptible to wear, trading one form of engineering fault for another), which means - surprise, surprise - RAID servers are destined to fail.

So what then is a prepared administrator to do? Planning is always the best idea, obviously, and is not as difficult as it may seem. Consider these ideas when planning for RAID array breakdown:

Build An Inventory - If you are in control of your organization's IT assets, or have responsibility over some of them, ensure you understand exactly what lies within your duties. This means all assets, from simple user PCs to major mainframe systems. Don't get caught by surprise when RAID or hard drive failure rears its ugly head.

Gathering The Details On Your Assets - Once you've made a list of what Information Technology solutions you're responsible for, it is your duty to create a knowledgebase that will be there for you in the event of disaster. To begin, analyze your list of systems, and prioritize the crucial ones, such as machines that use mission-critical applications such as Exchange servers or Oracle databases. Set about gathering all critical manuals, manufacturer support site details (including that for RAID controller cards and specialized components), and high-quality technology forums. Better to find and catalog this knowledgebase now, as opposed to when you're in a wild panic.

Who You Gonna Call? - So an all-out RAID failure has just occurred. I guess you have a fully qualified 24 hour RAID repair vendor already in your Rolodex (do people still use those?), so you can easily give them a call and begin the process of getting the hardware to them. Not the case? It should be. In fact, why not take the time out right now to build yourself a shortlist. Investigate not only data recovery companies, but those that specialize in RAID repair, or better yet, one day turnaround RAID recovery. Call the technicians today, and simulate what a disaster might be like. How does the shop handle it?

When it comes to the overall safety of your systems (and your job), there's no such thing as "being too proactive". Being cool under pressure is paramount in a case where RAID data recovery is your only choice, and will ensure that your emergency is more a bump in the road than a critical catastrophe.

Ryan Davis Alexander is a professional data recovery technician, and webmaster with http://www.raiddatarecovery.net. Discover a number of hard drive recovery and system tricks, as well as determine how to recover raid data today.
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