A SAN packs a lot of disks, several RAID groups and a layer of LUNs and virtualisation on top — so when it fails, the data is usually intact but buried under a broken abstraction. We recover storage area networks that have lost more disks than the redundancy allows, suffered a controller fault, or had a LUN go offline or corrupt. It’s complex, multi-disk work reassembled entirely from images, and it’s squarely what our engineers do. Whether it’s a Dell EMC, HPE, NetApp or QNAP/Synology SAN, the diagnosis is free and no-recovery-no-fee applies.
Re-initialising a SAN, forcing a LUN back online, or rebuilding onto degraded disks can overwrite recoverable data. Power it down and let us image every disk before anything is written.
A SAN failure is rarely a single disk. Underneath the LUNs sit one or more RAID groups, and a second disk failure in a group, a controller fault, or a corrupted LUN mapping can take volumes offline while the data itself is still there. Sometimes it’s the metadata — the pool or LUN configuration — that has corrupted after a power event or firmware update, leaving healthy disks that no longer present as a volume. Each layer has to be reconstructed in the right order, and the SAN’s own “repair” or re-initialise routines are the wrong tool for any of it.
We image every disk in the SAN individually, then rebuild it layer by layer from the copies — the underlying RAID groups first, then the pool and LUN structure on top, then the file systems and virtual machines inside. Working out the disk order, stripe geometry and LUN mapping by hand is the heart of the job, and doing it from images means nothing we try can make the originals worse. The disks leave exactly as they arrived, and your volumes are extracted from the reconstructed stack.
We recover Dell EMC, HPE, NetApp, IBM, Infortrend and QNAP/Synology SAN units, across iSCSI and Fibre Channel, in RAID 5, 6, 10 and pooled configurations. Label every disk with its enclosure and slot position, and send the controllers or head unit where you can — the LUN and pool configuration is as important as the disks themselves.
Usually, yes. An offline LUN is normally a metadata or mapping problem, not lost data — the underlying disks still hold everything. We image every disk and rebuild the RAID groups, pool and LUN structure off the hardware to bring the volume back. Forcing the LUN online first is the main risk.
Often not. A second disk rarely fails completely at once, so we can usually image enough of it to recover the parity and rebuild the group. It’s harder than a single failure, but far from hopeless — send every disk, including the ones flagged as failed.
Send the disks, clearly labelled by enclosure and slot, and the controllers or head unit if you can. The disks hold the data, but the controller configuration tells us how the LUNs and pools were mapped, which we need to rebuild the stack correctly.
Drop it at our Leeds address in The Pinnacle, or post it in fully insured — we’ll talk you through packing enclosures and disks safely. Either way it’s handled in-house by our own engineers.
A free diagnosis first, always — then a fixed written quote before any work begins, and no fee at all on most jobs if the data doesn’t come back. SAN recoveries are quoted after diagnosis, as the price depends on the number of disks, RAID groups and the fault — but the figure is always fixed in writing before any chargeable work. Drop your device at our Leeds address in The Pinnacle, or post it in fully insured from anywhere in Yorkshire; whichever route it takes, it’s handled in-house by our own engineers and never outsourced.
The diagnosis is free, the quote is fixed in writing, and most jobs carry no fee unless your data comes back. Don’t re-initialise or force a LUN online — power it down and get the disks to us.