Arrays, NAS and Servers
Four Disks Out of a Retired NAS, Ten Years On
Disks out of an array are not booted, they are imaged individually and then put back together in software
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Jobs sent in from Bracknell, from towns across Berkshire and Surrey and from half of London, set down as the bench found them: what arrived, what had really gone wrong with it, how it was worked, and what went home afterwards. The figures and the terms quoted on every page are the published ones. One of these files is a job that was turned down, and it is here for the same reason as the other thirty-five.
Disks out of an array are not booted, they are imaged individually and then put back together in software
A set that mounts has its disks and its geometry intact, which puts the fault in the filesystem above them
An interrupted write leaves the volume inconsistent, so the drive letter survives and the files behind it do not
One device reading a drive and another refusing it points at the filesystem rather than at the hardware
A single bad partition on a drive whose other partitions still work is a structure fault, and deleting the table is not the fix
Windows reporting a healthy device is a statement about hardware and says nothing about the filesystem on it
A damaged part on the board stops a stick working and leaves the memory chip entirely unaffected
A stick that stops between one use and the next has either lost its controller or lost its index, and the two are told apart in one test
A cracked card can still be recovered, provided the break missed the memory die itself
A card the machine can see but cannot describe has a damaged index, which is rebuilt rather than replaced
Corrupted details followed by no recognition at all is a controller failing in two stages
On a hardware-encrypted stick the controller both presents and decrypts, so losing it takes out two things at once
A snapped-off connector stops a stick plugging in, and says nothing about the memory behind it
A format prompt is the machine admitting it cannot read the index, not an instruction to obey
Heads fly closer to the platter than a speck of dust is wide, so the drop does not have to be dramatic
A drive that spins and refuses to present itself has lost the tables it needs before it can say what it is
A delay between the fall and the failure is normal, and it does not mean the fall was innocent
When the machine, the cable and the caddy have all been eliminated, what is left is the drive itself
A drive taken out and replaced can still be read as a data device once it is out of the machine it was failing in
Where the flash is soldered flat to the mainboard there is no unit to send, and saying so at the enquiry costs nothing
A confirmed head fault over sound platters is the most ordinary job in the trade, whoever failed to finish it
A swollen battery kills a laptop and leaves the storage entirely untouched, on any machine with a removable drive
The data is on the disk, not in the machine, so a dead laptop and a missing charger settle nothing
A drive that will not turn is either an electronics fault or a seized mechanism, and the two are separated by current
A sealed helium drive is opened in the lab like any other, and a quiet noise after an impact is still a head fault
Changing the enclosure is a genuine test, and a rough noise that survives it belongs to the mechanism
A drive can click and ask to be formatted at the same time, and the format prompt is a symptom of the clicking
A drive that announces itself to the port but never appears has a mechanism stuck short of ready
Opening a drive outside clean air adds a problem, and the honest answer is that it usually does not end the job
Clicking gets worse with use, and the fortnight between the first noise and the last is spent, not free
A fall damages heads mechanically whether the drive was running or not, and the clicking is the proof
A lit indicator proves power and nothing else, and a shop that has already bypassed the caddy has narrowed the job usefully
A head that will not move freely leaves a drive audible and unlistable, and it is dealt with under laminar flow
A bent socket is a repairable joint, and unlabelled drives are read one at a time rather than guessed at
A drive that stops a computer starting is shorting the supply, and the platters behind it are usually untouched
Liquid travels down and inwards, so the storage has to be assessed on its own rather than assumed innocent
Describe the noise, or the message on the screen, and the bench will put a name to it. Examination free, 2 working days from arrival, one written figure, and a logical fault carries no fix, no fee.