Top 6 Raid Recovery Software for Hard Drive

Hard drive is a specific component in a computer's data storage. They comprise of a few parallel disks covered in a case, actuator, actuator axis, actuator arm, platter, spindle, head, and the power and IDE connectors.

Part 1: What is Raid?

RAID – also known as redundant array of independent disks – is a form of storage that joins numerous disk drive components into one unit to achieve performance improvement or data redundancy. Sometimes it is aimed at both scenarios.

As data is sent across the drives and each way is known as a RADI level. Each layout is allocated its own name, for example RAID 1 or RAID 0 with each level giving balance between each of the key goals of capacity, availability, reliability and performance. A level higher than RAID 0 will protect against read errors and entire physical drive failures.

Part 2: Different Raid Levels

All levels can be important at times and you need to find out which one is applicable for raid data recovery.

RAID 0 Disk striping – One file can be read from many disks allowing capacity and speed from all. This is known as stripping and gives a better performance. It can’t however allow redundancy or copy data or hold parity information. The two disks appear as one, so when one is damaged, data loss occurs as the array is broken. This level of RAID is normally for live stream caching when speed is more important than the loss of data.

Disks – minimum 2. Pros: better performance, cons: lack of redundancy. When used for business it allows Live Streaming.

RAID 1 – Disk mirroring Pairs of drives can be read and written and is aimed at providing redundancy. Remaining disks can still be reached if one in the array fails. A replacement is given replica data from the surviving one and the array is rebuilt. This is the level to use for creating failover storage.

At least 2 disks are needed with tolerance of faults and the easy recover of data being the pros and the con being a higher megabyte cost.

RAID 5 parity striping As with RAID 0, data blocks are sent across many disks, but here parity details can be stored as well. Here there is speed and data can be stored in all disks. A failed disk passes data to the others and only a third of disk capacity is needed.

A minimum of 3 disks are needed. Pros include tolerance of faults and an improved performance. The con is a decrease in performance and servers carrying out write operations due to parity overhead.

RAID 6 – striping with double parity This is close to RAID 5 but with extra reliability due to an additional parity block. Even of 2 drives fail simultaneously and the array stays intact.

A minimum of 4 disks is required with the pros being increased redundancy compared to RAID 5 and the cons reduced performance, although it is ideal for application servers among others.

RAID 10 – striping and mirroring A combination of RAID 1 and 0 providing the better performance of RAID 0 and redundancy of RAID 1.

4 disks at least are needed and the pros are tolerance of faults and good performance while cons include high cost and lower capacity.

Part 3: Top 6 Raid Recovery Software for Hard Drive

• 1. DiskInternals
• 2. Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery
• 3. ReclaiMe Free RAID Recovery
• 4. UFS Explorer RAID Recovery
• 5. RAID Reconstructor V4.40
• 6. GetDataBack

Data recovery from raid hard drives can be easy or painful depending on the level of RAID and the nature of the RAID, a hardware RAID or a software Raid. Software RAIDs could turn up to be easy to recover in the manner that the data is stored in physically separate disks. It is not the case always. Software RAIDs could be as hard as hardware RAIDs when coming to recovering data upon a failed disk. There have been problems and solutions. It gets even complicated when you want to pull out some data manually from a malfunctioned hard drive. If a hard drive is not RAID configured, you don't need to use the complicated methods. To make it easier there are software applications which make raid recovery easy.

1. DiskInternals

With DiskInternals you can rebuild all sorts of arrays just as simply as one hard disk. All variations of arrays can be fixed regardless of whether they are linked to a dedicated RAID or a RAID enabled motherboard. HP, Dell, Adaptec, and DDF compatible devices are supported.

Advantages:

• The automatic mode allows users to sit back and let the software do it all.
• It can switch between automatic and manual modes.
• It automatically detects the type of disk array.

Disadvantages:

• The manual mode will cause the software to decide the array type based on user inputs rather than the reality.

2. Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery

You can set up remote recovery if there is a decent connection. Inaccessible RAID data can be recovered if quick recovery fails. Any area of the drive can be scanned and recovered. It is also possible to bring back lost media that has been corrupted. Drive Status can be checked and scanned so you can be sure there are no faults there.

3. ReclaiMe Free RAID Recovery

ReclaiMe Free raid hard drive recovery is not an entirely free raid recovery software. This is a platform where you can actually see which files are available for recovery. You can decide whether you have the data you needed or not.

Advantages:

• You can view the directory, files and folders in the damaged disk for free.
• Various levels of RAID could be recovered.
• Most NAS devices are supported for data recovery.

Disadvantages:

• Once you have identified the data you needed, you will have to purchase some actual hard drive data recovery software or find space in your disk to copy your data.
• Runs only on Windows Operating System.

4. UFS Explorer RAID Recovery

It allows recovery at any level and it is possible to edit, save or build RAID configuration. There does not even have to be physical disks, but just disk images. The VIM import tool also increases recovery. You can modify created configuration and there is a hexadecimal viewer to aid analysis of data.

5. RAID Reconstructor V4.40

This will analyze the drive and choose all correct parameters. A virtual image will copy the RAID. You have a destripper as well as an analyzer and thanks to both you can retrieve your data.

6. GetDataBack

This has been rewritten and designed with a mixture of experience and the latest ideas. It takes one click to retrieve your files and can be used by everyone. You don’t need to know the format of the drives and one of the 4 levels will work for you.

Advantages:

• The automatic mode allows users to sit back and let the software do it all.
• It can switch between automatic and manual modes.
• It automatically detects the type of disk array.

Disadvantages:

• The manual mode will cause the software to decide the array type based on user inputs rather than the reality.

Differences between Hardware Raid and Software Raid

Hardware RAID means a hardware based mechanism. The hardware is designed and incorporated to accommodate the RAID mechanism. It could either be performed through a RAID card or be built in the motherboard itself. In this type of technology, separate disks are used but the system counts them all as the same disk. The resultant capacity of the RAID drive will depend on the number of disks used and the level of RAID. Usually the higher the RAID number, the lower the resultant capacity of the disk because much space is used for parity and making data recovery much easier than the previous level. For example, if the same number of disks with the same capacity are used RAID 0, the resultant capacity will be higher than when they would be used in a RAID 6 drive.

Software RAID, as the name mentions, is brought about by software and there is no need for the hardware to be originally configured to be a RAID drive. In a computer system there are tools like the Device Manager to better manage every component of the hardware. The software and programming are so advanced now that we can actually manipulate the function of the hardware by advanced software. A software RAID is achieved by allocating spaces in different drives to form a virtual RAID drive. The computer will then recognize all combined spaces as one single disk or drive. In the operations of the computer, all combined components of a software RAID will be one.

Part 4: Free Download Hard Drive Data Recovery

Wondershare raid recovery software is a safe and effective raid hard drive data recovery software, recover your lost videos, photos, music, documents, emails, etc. from raid hard drive as well as from USB drives, external hard drives, and other storage devices.