QNAP NAS Data Recovery for Australian Businesses
Payam Data Recovery recovers data from failed QNAP NAS units and QNAP rack servers for Australian businesses: RAID groups that are inactive or unmounted, storage pools lost after a firmware update, RAID 5 and RAID 6 arrays with two or more failed drives, and pools with dead SSD cache drives. We work with QTS storage pools on ext4 and QuTS hero ZFS pools. Send us the drives only, labelled by bay. The assessment and written quote are free, and an urgent quote in 2 to 3 hours costs $500.
Free Assessment
and Quote
Urgent Quote
in 2 to 3 Hours
See Your Files
Before You Pay
QNAP problems we recover
These are the QNAP faults IT teams bring us most often. In most of them the data is still on the drives.
What not to do with a failed QNAP
What happens in the first hour decides how much we can recover. Please:
- Do not run Rebuild, Recover or a file system check in Storage and Snapshots while more than one drive shows warnings.
- Do not remove or recreate the storage pool, initialise the NAS, or reset it to factory settings.
- Do not install the firmware update again, and do not remove the SSD cache drives on their own.
- Do not take the drives out and put them back in a different order, and do not move them into another unit to see if it helps.
- Do not run recovery software, chkdsk or a file system check on the original drives. We clone every drive first and work from the clones.
- Do not keep switching it on to check. A failing drive gets worse every time it runs.
How to send us the drives
We do not need the enclosure, the power supply or the drive trays. Just the drives:
- Shut the unit down, or switch it off if it no longer responds. Every hour a failing drive runs can make it worse.
- Label every drive with its bay or slot number before you take it out: bay 1, bay 2 and so on. A strip of masking tape on each drive is enough.
- Send all of the drives, faulty and healthy, including SSD cache drives and any drive that was taken out earlier. Label those too, so we know which is which.
- Write down what happened: the messages on screen, the RAID level if you know it, what has already been tried, and which drive failed first.
- If the volume or shared folders are encrypted, send the password or key file details with the job. We need them to read the data.
- Pack each drive in an anti-static bag with padding, fill out the RAID job form, and bring or post the drives to any of our labs and offices.
- If the drives are still under warranty, get written approval from the manufacturer or retailer first, because we may need to open a drive.
Your recovered files come back on an external drive. You can supply your own, or buy one from us when you approve the quote.
Urgent assessment and Emergency service
Free assessment. We test every drive and email you a written quote within 1 to 2 days. The quote shows the price and turnaround for Economy, Priority and Emergency, any attempt fee, and your chances of success. Nothing is charged until you approve it.
Urgent assessment, $500. If the business is down, ask for an urgent RAID and NAS assessment. You get a written quote within 2 to 3 hours.
Emergency service. When you approve Emergency, work starts straight away, and our data recovery engineers keep working after hours and on weekends until the job is done. At our Sydney CBD, Rhodes NSW, Melbourne and Brisbane labs, work can start the same day once the urgent assessment is done and you approve the quote. From Adelaide, Perth and Auckland, the drives first travel to our Rhodes NSW lab by overnight courier. We never promise a finish time, but your quote gives you a realistic one. See emergency data recovery for how it works.
After hours. Outside business hours (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm), only the Emergency service is available. Call 0404 872 926. Staff may need 1 to 2 hours’ notice to come in, and a non-refundable emergency assessment fee of $500 applies to RAID and NAS jobs ($150 for other devices). The job then goes ahead on the Emergency service. Please use this number for genuine emergencies only. If you cannot bring the drives in yourself, you can send them by Uber or a same-day courier at your own cost.
How much does QNAP recovery cost?
Most RAID and NAS recoveries cost $2,500 to $6,500 on Economy. Prices are in Australian dollars and include GST. The full price list is on our data recovery cost page. These are the rows that come up most often for a QNAP NAS:
- Basic backup from healthy drives: $350 Economy, $550 Priority, $1,400 Emergency, no attempt fee.
- One failed drive, a RAID rebuild only, or file system corruption: $2,500 Economy, $3,500 Priority, $10,000 Emergency.
- Two failed drives: $4,500 Economy, $6,500 Priority, $18,000 Emergency.
- More than two failed drives: $6,500 Economy, $9,000 Priority, $18,000 Emergency.
Apart from a basic backup, RAID and NAS jobs carry a $500 attempt fee. It is part of the quoted price, not an extra, and if nothing is recovered it is the only cost. Very large or complex cases may have a custom price, quoted after the free assessment. We do not charge by the hour.
Economy usually takes 3 to 4 weeks, Priority 1 to 3 weeks and Emergency 2 to 6 days, with no guarantee. A basic backup from healthy drives is faster: 5 to 10 days on Economy and 1 to 2 days on Emergency. The success rate is the same on all three services; only the speed changes.
Where the work is done
RAID and NAS recovery is done at our own labs in Sydney CBD, Rhodes NSW, Melbourne and Brisbane. A drive that needs a head swap is opened in one of the two professional ISO 5 laminar flow cabinets at our Rhodes lab, and goes there by overnight courier at our cost. Adelaide, Perth and Auckland have secure drop-off offices, and drives from there go to Rhodes by overnight courier. Nothing is outsourced, and we do not offer an on-site service.
We have been recovering data in Australia since 1998, with over 300,000 successful recoveries. Supply your own NDA and our director, Payam Toloo, will sign it. IT support companies that send a job for their client can do it through our partnership program.
Case studies: see how we do it
Real QNAP jobs from our labs, each with the full write-up and a video. More on our case studies page.
QNAP RAID 5 with two failed drives
A crashing QNAP with four WD Green drives: one with bad sectors and one with a head crash. Recovery software could not read the array, so it was rebuilt by hand.
QNAP RAID 5 another lab called impossible
A lab overseas said this 4-drive QNAP could not be recovered, and one drive had been opened before. We recovered 10 years of family photos and documents in 2 weeks.
QNAP RAID 6 after a firmware update
Eight 10TB drives and four SSDs. After a firmware update the RAID 6 would not rebuild, five drives had SMART warnings and two SSDs were dead. Cloned over 5 days, all data recovered.
4-drive QNAP RAID 6 in 24 hours
Three drives looked healthy and SMART did not flag the fourth, but it would not open. We cloned the weak drive on a DeepSpar imager and recovered everything in 24 hours.
Frequently asked questions
In most cases, yes. It usually means one or more drives have failed or dropped out, or the file system is damaged. Power it off, label the drives by bay and send all of them. We clone each drive and rebuild the RAID from the clones in a read-only way, so nothing is written to your originals. Recovery is never guaranteed, and your free quote tells you your chances.
Do not run the update again or recreate the pool. Send us all of the drives, including any SSDs. In one QNAP case, drives became inaccessible after a firmware update, five of eight drives had SMART warnings and two SSDs were dead. We cloned the drives over 5 days and recovered all of the data.
Usually not. We need all but one drive readable. We repair the most recently failed drive temporarily, for example with a head swap, clone it and leave the other out. Recovery is only impossible when two drives have failed and both cannot be repaired, which is rare.
Yes. QNAP storage pools add their own layers on top of the RAID, and general tools often fail on them. When the tools fail, we work out the drive order and layout by hand, as we did on a QNAP RAID 5 with two failed drives.
Yes. In most cases we can rebuild the ZFS file system and extract the files and folders, using specialised tools and our own software.
Yes. Send every drive in the unit, including the SSDs, each labelled with its slot. Cached data may only exist on the SSDs.
No. We only need the drives. We do not repair NAS units, so keep the enclosure or ask QNAP about a repair or replacement.
Most RAID and NAS recoveries cost $2,500 to $6,500 on Economy. A basic backup from healthy drives is $350. One failed drive is $2,500 on Economy, two failed drives $4,500 and more than two $6,500. Priority and Emergency are faster and cost more. Apart from a basic backup there is a $500 attempt fee, which is part of the price, not an extra. The assessment and written quote are free. All prices are on our data recovery cost page.
The free assessment and written quote take 1 to 2 days. An urgent assessment costs $500 and gives you a written quote within 2 to 3 hours. On Emergency, work starts as soon as you approve the quote and usually takes 2 to 6 days, with no guarantee. At our Sydney CBD, Rhodes NSW, Melbourne and Brisbane labs, work can start the same day.
Yes, on the Emergency service only. Call 0404 872 926. Staff may need 1 to 2 hours’ notice to come in, and a non-refundable emergency assessment fee of $500 applies to RAID and NAS jobs ($150 for other devices). The job then goes ahead on the Emergency service. During business hours, Monday to Friday 9am to 5:30pm, you can choose Economy, Priority or Emergency after the quote.
Yes. Supply your own NDA and our director, Payam Toloo, will sign it. Give us your company name and ABN when you book in, and we will put them on your tax invoice.
First published 27 October 2026. Prices match our data recovery cost page as checked on 27 October 2026.
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Phone: 1300 444 800 (within Australia)
After hours, emergencies only: 0404 872 926
International: +61 2 80766079
Email: help@payam.com.au
International customers are always welcome. The easiest way to reach us from overseas is by email at help@payam.com.au, which works in every time zone.
