Synology Data Recovery

[Poetik92]

I've got a client with a Synology 4 Disk station (I can provide model number later if necessary). Recently my client went in and deleted an old user & their files and such for an employee who is no longer with them, he later realized another employee (Her replacement) was still using her predecessors files and folders and subsequently lost most of her work when the folders were deleted. My client would like me to try and recover the file and I'd like to give it a shot while causing as little downtime as possible as far as the server is concerned.

Is there a good way to do this? My thinking up to this point was to wait until after hours and remove a drive from the unit, clone it and run the recovery software on the clone to see if the files are there.

Ideas? Bad idea? Good idea? If I had to choose one thing to be my weakest factor servers would probably be it so I just want to make sure I'm going about this properly if its possible at all.

 

[phaZed]

You will not be able to pull the drive like that for data recovery. For one, the filesystem is likely Synology's own Btrfs or EXT4. Secondly, the NAS is likely in a RAID configuration which would require you to clone each of the drives and re-assemble their images in software (Check out R-Studio, for example).

You can check on the DSM's Recycle Bin on the Synology and see if that is active.

You can run Photorec and other Linux command line tools directly on the NAS. Look for 'Testdisk' as a pre-made package to install.

 

[TAPtech]

as phaZed said, check to see if Recycle Bin is enabled on the Synology. I don't think it works retroactively, but now would be a good time to enable it anyways.

 

[Markverhyden]

In addition to what has been mentioned above if they have been actively using the device the actual space may have already been over written.

 

[Larry Sabo]

ReclaiMe File Recovery recovers from Synology devices: http://www.reclaime.com/library/nas-recovery.aspx

 

[lcoughey]

Is the unit 100% backed up now? If not, are you willing to be responsible for losing everything else that is on there too? You admit your lack of knowledge in this area and the importance of reduced downtime. I'd say that this is not the time to start learning.

That said, there is no "quick" way to safely handle this. The unit must be shut down while all the drives are imaged at the same time.

The amount of down time will depend solely on how fast one is able to get full sector-by-sector copies of all the drives.

The odds of recovery are low, at best, based on the circumstances. And, as Mark suggested, go down significantly the longer the unit is on and being used.

One thing I'd say for sure is, you will want to be 100% certain that you are not going to take the drives out, clone them and try to recover from the virtually reconstructed RAID before risking further overwriting by looking for possible copies in the recycle bins.

There is a reason why such cases are neither fast or cheap with professional data recovery labs.

Good luck.

 

[DataMedics]

Synology's DSM is usually configured by default to perform disk scrubbing every x number of days. So if you wait even a minute too long the data is gone forever. The second your client realized the data was missing was the time it should have been unplugged from the wall.

 

[Poetik92]

The unit has been in use and I feared that it was possibly overwritten. I considered the raid complicating the recovery which is why I asked here. It appears to be SHR.

I've poked around and checked and it seems they have recycle bin enabled but it looks like there no recycle bin for the home folder that was deleted.

I'm not going to risk the data of everyone else just to possibly recover one person's files.. they will have to take this as a loss.

A better question is are there any good resources to learn about servers and networking. As my weakest points Id like to learn more about them so I can expand my service offerings to clients who need it.

 

[trevm999]

A better question is are there any good resources to learn about servers and networking. As my weakest points Id like to learn more about them so I can expand my service offerings to clients who need it.

I'm not sure this is a better question. Are we still talking in the context of this thread? What kind of servers and what size of networks are you looking to support? I'd say the best way to learn is to set up your own network how you would set up a business.

Also, make sure you sell them a backup for their NAS (preferably a local and an offsite one). This would have been a 2 second fix with a backup.

 

[Poetik92]

Its funny I actually forgot they SHOULD already have an offsite backup setup.. they are checking with the previous IT person to find out if that was actually set up. We've accepted the data is lost for this issue but now i'm looking towards the future.