Unstoppable Synology NAS Hybrid RAID Data Recovery Case Study: Another Company Failed, We Recovered 12TB

Another company spent months on this job and gave up. Marcus, a client in New Zealand, had already been through that experience when he sent his Synology DS918+ drives to Payam Data Recovery in Sydney. The local data recovery company, Data Lab, had declared the RAID fully corrupted and unrecoverable. This Synology Hybrid RAID data recovery case study shows what happened when the job landed on Payam’s workbench, and why experience matters more than any individual tool.

The Challenge: Synology Hybrid RAID, BTRFS, and a Previous Failed Recovery

Marcus’s Synology DS918+ NAS used Synology Hybrid RAID with the BTRFS file system, a combination that presents specific challenges for recovery. Synology Hybrid RAID does not follow standard RAID conventions exactly, and BTRFS is a modern copy-on-write file system with its own internal structure. When something goes wrong at the array level, standard RAID detection tools often struggle to make sense of what they are looking at.

Marcus sent in five drives: three HGST 10TB drives, one WD 10TB drive, and one Seagate 20TB drive. Payam’s first observation was that one of the four main drives was a different brand to the others, which often indicates a drive was replaced at some point following an earlier failure. After checking with Marcus, it was confirmed that the 20TB Seagate drive held an old backup and was not part of the original array. It was set aside.

Drive Diagnostics: What the Atola Insight Forensic Found

All four main drives were tested on the Atola Insight Forensic. Three drives were healthy, with good SMART status and fully readable sectors. The fourth, one of the HGST drives, reported a password lock.

Payam explained that a password lock on a hard drive is rarely what it appears. In most cases it is not a genuine access restriction set by the user, but rather a symptom of hardware failure or firmware corruption. The drive was effectively unusable regardless of the cause. Since the array was configured as RAID 5 and only required three of the four drives to reconstruct, the locked drive was set aside and the three healthy drives were carried forward.

The Hidden Problem: A Wiped Partition Table

When Payam connected the three healthy drives to his workstation and opened Windows Disk Management, something immediately stood out. Two of the drives showed multiple partitions as expected. The third showed none at all. It appeared as unallocated space.

This pointed strongly to one conclusion: at some point, someone had deleted or reinitialised that drive, wiping its partition table. This is almost certainly why Data Lab in New Zealand could not rebuild the array. Without a partition table on one of the member drives, any tool that relies on that structure to identify and reconstruct the RAID will fail before it even begins.

Payam opened WinHex to examine each of the three drives at the sector level. He confirmed that none of the drives were blank or mirrored copies of another. All three were approximately 90% full with unique data. The underlying content was there. The problem was working out how it was arranged.

When Automated Tools Could Not Help

With the drives examined, Payam attempted to use specialist RAID reconstruction software to autodetect the array configuration. UFS Explorer was tried first. It could not find the RAID. R-Studio was tried next. It also could not find it. Neither tool was able to automatically identify the correct configuration from what was on the drives.

However, UFS Explorer did return one useful piece of information. It detected partial data showing the position of two of the drives within the array. This gave Payam a starting point for the manual work ahead.

The Manual Reconstruction: Every Combination Tested

With automated detection exhausted, Payam wrote down every possible combination of disc order, stripe block size, and RAID configuration and began testing them one at a time. Synology Hybrid RAID introduces additional variables compared to standard RAID 5, which means the number of combinations to work through is higher. This is slow, methodical work that requires both patience and the experience to recognise when a combination is getting closer to correct.

A few hours later, Payam found the right combination. The array rebuilt successfully. Approximately 12TB of data became accessible. He tested a selection of files to confirm they were intact, then generated a complete file listing and video preview for Marcus to review before shipment.

The recovered data was transferred to a 20TB WD external hard drive and shipped back to Marcus in New Zealand at no extra charge.

Synology Hybrid RAID Recovery Results

Approximately 12TB of data was recovered from an array that another company had declared fully corrupted and unrecoverable. The recovery succeeded despite a wiped partition table on one member drive, a password-locked drive that had to be excluded, and the complete failure of automated RAID detection tools. The case was resolved through manual parameter testing and 27 years of hands-on RAID recovery experience.

Why Experience Is the Most Important Tool in Complex RAID Recovery

Payam has been working on RAID recoveries since he was 18 years old. At 45, he still handles two to three complex RAID cases every single day, working with managed IT companies and IT managers across Australia and internationally. When he started in this field, many of the forensic tools available today did not yet exist. He learned to solve these problems without them.

That background is exactly what this case required. No tool could autodetect the array. No shortcut was available. The only path to the data was to understand the problem deeply enough to test every configuration systematically until the right one appeared. That is not something a software licence provides.

For international clients facing complex RAID or NAS data loss, Payam Data Recovery accepts drives sent from overseas. All work is performed at the Sydney laboratory. RAID and NAS data recovery is available for all Synology configurations, all other NAS brands, and all RAID levels. For further background on how Synology Hybrid RAID differs from standard implementations, the standard RAID levels reference provides useful context.

Synology NAS Data Recovery Pricing

Payam Data Recovery offers a free assessment and quote for all RAID and NAS recovery jobs before any work begins. Economy service for RAID and NAS recovery ranges from $800 to $10,000 depending on the complexity of the case, with Priority and Emergency services available for faster turnaround at higher price points. All prices are in Australian dollars and include GST, with free return postage included. International customers are welcome and Payam Data Recovery regularly handles recoveries sent from New Zealand, Asia, and other countries.

There is no obligation following the free assessment. If recovery is not possible, no recovery fee is charged for the assessment itself.

Frequently Asked Questions: Synology NAS Hybrid RAID Data Recovery

About Payam Data Recovery

Payam Data Recovery was founded in 1998 and has completed over 150,000 successful recoveries across Australia and internationally. The company operates full-service laboratories in Sydney CBD, Rhodes NSW (head office and main specialised lab), Melbourne CBD, and Brisbane CBD. Secure drop-off points are available in Adelaide and Perth, with free shipping both ways to the Rhodes laboratory.

All work is performed in Australia. Payam never outsources overseas. For hard drive and RAID cases, the team uses the Atola Insight Forensic and Ace Lab PC-3000, with WinHex for manual sector-level analysis. Payam handles two to three complex RAID recoveries every single day and works with managed IT companies and IT managers across Australia and internationally. International customers, including those in New Zealand and Asia, are welcome to send devices for assessment.

For complex Synology NAS and RAID data recovery cases where other companies have given up, Payam’s depth of experience is the difference that matters.

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