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 hands-on RAID recovery experience going back to 1998.

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.

Why People Choose Payam Data Recovery

When a RAID, NAS or server fails, the array has to be rebuilt correctly the first time, without putting the original drives at further risk. That is the work we do every day.

• We are a specialist data recovery lab, not an IT support company. We have been recovering data since 1998, from over 300,000 devices.
• Over 2,000 IT companies and computer shops across Australia send us their customers’ complex cases, and data recovery labs and IT companies in more than 50 countries have sent us their difficult cases over the past ten years.
• Every drive is tested and cloned first on professional tools such as Atola Insight Forensic, the PC-3000 and the DeepSpar Disk Imager, and the RAID is rebuilt from the clones. A drive that needs a head swap is opened in our ISO 5 certified laminar flow cabinet, with over 30,000 donor parts in-house, including around 20,000 donor hard drives.
• Emergency service for businesses. Many of our business and IT customers choose it, because every day a server is offline usually costs more than the difference in price. 24/7 emergency service is available as a premium option on 0404 872 926.
• Your data stays private. Our data recovery engineers open only a few random, non-sensitive files to check the recovery worked, and we will sign your NDA on request.
• See your files before you pay. You tell us which files matter most. Before you pay for the recovery, we’ll send you a list of your recovered files so you can check them. If any of the files you listed are missing, tell us and we’ll search again.
• There is no card surcharge. Pay by Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Afterpay, Zip or bank deposit (EFT).
• Rated 4.9 from over 2,400 Google reviews.

We are not the cheapest. We are the best in Australia at this work. We know what to do, how to do it, and we will do our very best for you. Your best chance of getting your data back is with us.

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. Priority and Emergency services are available for faster turnaround at higher price points, and current prices are on our RAID and NAS data recovery page. All prices are in Australian dollars and include GST. If we recover your data and you pay, return delivery is free, including to New Zealand. International customers are welcome and Payam Data Recovery regularly handles recoveries sent from New Zealand, Asia, and other countries. The easiest way for an international customer to reach us is by email at help@payam.com.au, which works in every time zone.

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 300,000 devices recovered 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 offices are available in Adelaide and Perth, which send your device to the Rhodes, NSW laboratory and back to you at no cost, even if you decline the quote.

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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