I have an issue over here, a client sent me this “Highpoint Rocketstor 6618a” Thunderbolt raid enclosure to handle some data on it. well, it turns out it’s having an issue with the array. it’s simply not detecting it. since its running on thunderbolt, the only thing I have that can read it was a mac book pro. I then had them send me the original system it was running on, this mac desktop “trash can” hoping that the raid software would just pick it up, no go… the High point website is pretty useless. and even tho they offer a firmware that supports 10.13 the raid management software does not specify that it does. im thinking a good solution would be to take put them all into my nocro server and recovery the array in Ubuntu. I would need some pointers on that. (Can testdisk read a raid array? )
System INFO:
Highpoint Rocketstor 6618a type C thunderbolt
Raid 0
8x 8TB WD Reds - 64TB Total
Apple - Mac Pro Desktop Computer
Here is what I have tried:
Loading Ubuntu and installing mdadm (it is not a software raid so not too surprising that did not work)
Updating the firmware on the high point from EFI 1.1 to 1.2. its supposed to fix compatible with mac os 10.13
Using a Mac book pro with osx 10.11
Using a Mac desktop with osx 10.13
The data on here is crucial! And has to be preserved at any cost!
If you need more details just let me know. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!
You’re going to trigger a lot of people here with talk like that.
I’m half joking, but I hope you realize the extent to which those statements are mutually exclusive.
Now that that’s out of the way, here’s what I think you should do.
Reach out to werecoverdata.com or similar. They will do a free evaluation. Depending on what’s wrong, recovery cost could be up to $20k though.
You don’t want to make any changes to anything. I would not have upgraded the firmware, for instance.
If you want to try and do it yourself, I would take the drives out and make note of which bay they were in.
Obtain an identical RAID enclosure and a set of identical disks.
Copy the block contents of each of the original drives to the new drives with dd.
Put the copies into the new RAID chassis and try to reinitialize the RAID 0. I have seen multiple instances where reinitialization brings back filesystem on a RAID.
If that doesn’t work, look into other recovery tools and see if you can find anything. Someone else here might have more of an idea.
Hardware RAID implementations are proprietary, so I don’t think you have any chance of finding something with your Norco in Ubuntu unless you’re using a compatible PCI-E RAID controller from the same manufacturer.
Thanks for the reply i was “triggered” as well when i received it from the clent and they had it in raid 0… I just started working with this company. They will have a proper system from here on out. im sure they’ve learned there lesson on proper data backups.
I definitely am leaning towards just having data recovery like the one you mentioned or drivesavers. as they can remote in and do all the work since there is no physical damage to the drives themselves.
However as a last shop and something you mention duplacating this setup would “only” be $1600 or so and i was getting numbers like $3000+ so its something i may present to the client.
Yes! i do plan on setting them up with a backup i may try to make my freenas box big enough to support for there off site box. and build them a 64tb free nas box for them.
Do you know if i can get thunderbolt running on FreeNAS?
Yea im with you there. its probably going to be a quick reinitialized. I wish I had the tech (PC-3000 and following software) to do this kind of repairs.
Because were rushing we paid $600 for the weekend work and the repair estimate is $3200 on top of that (That could be my money lol)
Well, this is embarrassing for someone… so after determining that we needed the recovery as it was too risky/slow to play around with it anymore. someone on the client’s side said “let me check one last system we have” boom all 8TB they needed. I was lucky, to be fast enough to stop the Data Recovery before it ended up costing us anything. Im sure they have learned their lesson and I will set them up with a proper FreeNAS box (ill make another thread for that soon) Now that the data is safe I want to try reinitializing with just the built-in tools to see if that would work. Just for fun obviously Thanks for the tips @oO.o
