Your DiskStation, RackStation, or FlashStation shows Volume Crashed or Storage Pool Degraded. Your shared folders, iSCSI LUNs, and virtual machine datastores are offline.
We recover enterprise Synology arrays through member-by-member imaging and offline SHR/SHR-2 reconstruction. Every drive is cloned through a write-blocker before any analysis begins.
All work happens at our Austin, TX lab. Free evaluation, no data = no charge.
How is data recovered from a failed enterprise Synology NAS?
Every member drive is imaged write-blocked with PC-3000 or DeepSpar, the SHR or SHR-2 geometry is read from the mdadm superblocks offline, the LVM logical volume is rebuilt from those images, and the Btrfs or EXT4 filesystem is extracted at our Austin lab. No data means no fee.
We recover data from these desktop DiskStation Plus, rackmount RackStation, and all-flash FlashStation models.
DiskStation Plus Series
Desktop NAS units running Btrfs or EXT4 on SHR/SHR-2, with an optional NVMe SSD cache.
DS920+ (4-bay, Intel Celeron J4125).
DS1522+ (5-bay, AMD Ryzen R1600).
DS1821+ (8-bay, AMD Ryzen V1500B).
RackStation Series
Rackmount appliances with optional expansion units.
RS1221+ (8-bay, AMD Ryzen V1500B).
RS2423+ (12-bay, AMD Ryzen V1780B).
RS3621xs+ (12-bay, Intel Xeon D-1541).
FlashStation Series
All-flash NAS appliances. The FS2500 and FS3410 take 2.5" SATA SSDs. The FS6400 takes 2.5" SATA SSDs, SAS SSDs, or SAS HDDs.
FS2500 (12-bay, all-flash 2.5" SATA SSD).
FS3410 (24-bay, all-flash).
FS6400 (24-bay, Intel Xeon Silver).
SHR-2 Architecture
What Makes SHR-2 Recovery More Complex?
SHR-2 is dual-parity mdadm (RAID 6 equivalent) stitched across mixed-capacity drives by LVM, then formatted Btrfs or EXT4. Complexity comes from imaging more members and from failures above the disks, like a dropped expansion shelf. Recovery is offline assembly of cloned images on a standard Linux workstation, never DSM auto-repair.
SHR-2 (Synology Hybrid RAID with dual parity) provides RAID 6 equivalent protection and tolerates two simultaneous drive failures. When drives have mixed capacities, SHR-2 creates multiple mdadm arrays at different capacity boundaries and combines them with LVM to form a single logical volume. Recovery gets complicated when the failure involves more than just the drives themselves.
How SHR-2 Stores Data
On most models, DSM splits each drive into three partitions: system, swap, and data. DSM mirrors the system partition as md0, and your volumes start at md2. SHR-2 creates mdadm RAID 6 arrays across the data partitions.
When drives have mixed capacities, SHR-2 creates multiple mdadm arrays at different capacity boundaries and combines them with LVM to form a single logical volume.
Btrfs or EXT4 sits on top of the LVM logical volume. Btrfs adds its own layer of metadata trees for chunks, devices, and subvolumes. The chunk tree is the one that maps logical block addresses to physical locations on the virtual array.
What Makes Enterprise Recovery Harder
Larger arrays require imaging and reconstructing more members, which increases the probability that at least one drive has bad sectors requiring retry-intensive imaging.
High-capacity drives in RackStation units may be helium-sealed. Once a helium drive is opened, it can't be permanently resealed. We temporarily repressurize the chamber with helium before the platters spin again. Head swaps require matched donor drives and a controlled environment on our 0.02 micron ULPA laminar flow bench.
How an expansion unit connects to the head unit depends on the model. The DX517 and RX418 use eSATA, the RX1223RP uses Mini-SAS HD, and the RX1217 plugs into the RS3621xs+ Infiniband expansion port. If the shelf fails, its drives drop out of the array, and that can crash the volume even though the drives are physically intact.
SHR vs SHR-2 vs RAID 5 vs RAID 6
Property
SHR
SHR-2
RAID 5
RAID 6
Parity disks / fault tolerance
Survives one drive loss (RAID 1 mirror on two drives, single parity on three or more)
Dual parity, survives two drive losses
Single parity, survives one drive loss
Dual parity, survives two drive losses
Mixed-capacity handling
LVM stitches multiple mdadm sets across capacity tiers
LVM stitches multiple mdadm sets across capacity tiers
Fixed stripe, capacity capped to smallest member
Fixed stripe, capacity capped to smallest member
Underlying Linux stack
mdadm plus LVM
mdadm plus LVM
mdadm
mdadm
Recovery approach
Offline reassembly of cloned images
Offline reassembly of cloned images
Offline reassembly of cloned images
Offline reassembly of cloned images
All four are standard Linux software RAID. Each one reassembles from cloned member images on a vanilla Linux workstation. No Synology hardware and no proprietary tool is required, because SHR and SHR-2 are mdadm plus LVM, not a closed format.
Both SHR-1 and SHR-2 are the same standard Linux stack of mdadm plus LVM plus Btrfs or EXT4, so an array reassembles on a stock Linux workstation without any Synology hardware. For the layer-by-layer breakdown, see the SHR mdadm + LVM + Btrfs architecture deep-dive.
Do not rebuild a degraded SHR-2 array on aging drives. The sustained I/O load of a parity recalculation stresses every remaining member. SHR-2 has dual parity, so it can take a second drive failure during the rebuild. After that there's no redundancy left, and a third failure is more than it can survive.
If the replacement drive uses SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) technology, the rebuild may stall. The Linux md driver reads that stall as a dead drive and ejects the stalling member. That aborts the rebuild and leaves the degraded array exposed. Power down the array immediately to prevent further damage.
NVMe SSD Cache Failures
What Happens When an NVMe Cache Drive Fails?
When a read-write cache fails, any writes it hadn't flushed to the HDDs yet are gone for good. The Btrfs filesystem on the HDDs is left incomplete and corrupted, and DSM shows Volume Crashed. We reassemble the mechanical array offline from the HDD member images.
DSM supports NVMe SSD caching in two modes: read-only and read-write. In read-write mode, write-back cache holds dirty data that has not yet been flushed to the HDD array, which can cause an immediate Volume Crashed state.
Read-Only Cache Failure
Synology's SSD Cache white paper describes cache contents as data copied from the disks as it is requested, and documents write-back as the read-write mode specifically.
The same white paper configures read-only cache across the SSDs as RAID 0, while read-write cache is RAID 1 "to ensure data integrity in case one SSD fails."
Read-Write Cache Failure
Write-back cache holds dirty (uncommitted) data that has not yet been flushed to the HDD array. If the NVMe drive dies before it flushes, those writes are gone for good. The Btrfs filesystem on the HDD array is left incomplete and corrupted, and DSM reports Volume Crashed.
How We Handle NVMe Cache Recovery
We reconstruct the HDD array offline. We assemble the mechanical member images with mdadm, then read the Btrfs volume from those clones instead of repairing it in place.
The DS920+, DS1520+, and DS1621+ ship with built-in M.2 NVMe cache slots. The RS1221+, RS2423+, and RS3621xs+ take M.2 SSD cache on a PCIe adapter card. We go through the same dirty-write loss on one model in DS920+ NVMe cache failure recovery, from the cache device dropping off the PCIe bus to the incomplete Btrfs filesystem it leaves on the mechanical members.
Process
How We Recover Enterprise Synology Arrays
We follow the same image-first, offline reconstruction workflow for every enterprise Synology, regardless of model or bay count. Each member drive is connected through a hardware write-blocker and imaged with PC-3000 or DeepSpar. We read mdadm superblocks from each imaged copy to determine stripe size, parity rotation, and member order; your original drives are never modified.
Enterprise Synology appliances are one branch of our broader NAS data recovery work, and the same image-first, offline reconstruction discipline applies whether the unit is a four-bay DiskStation or a rackmount RackStation with expansion shelves. Desktop DiskStation units run the same Linux software RAID under DSM, so Synology NAS data recovery outside the rackmount line rebuilds through the same mdadm and LVM reconstruction.
Free evaluation and configuration audit: We document your Synology model, DSM version, SHR/SHR-2 configuration, member drive models, NVMe cache configuration (if applicable), expansion unit connections, and any prior repair or rebuild attempts.
Write-blocked forensic imaging: Each member drive is connected through a hardware write-blocker and imaged with PC-3000 or DeepSpar. Drives with weak heads or bad sectors get conservative retry profiles and head maps. Helium-sealed enterprise drives that need head swaps are opened on our clean bench with matched donor parts.
mdadm and LVM metadata capture: We read mdadm superblocks from each imaged copy to determine stripe size, parity rotation, and member order. For SHR/SHR-2 with mixed-capacity drives, we reconstruct the LVM volume group that ties multiple mdadm arrays together. Reading the superblocks and assembling the members offline is ordinary mdadm recovery on Linux software RAID; for the standard SHR and SHR-2 layouts, nothing in that procedure depends on the Synology chassis the drives came out of.
Virtual array reconstruction: We assemble the virtual SHR/SHR-2 array from cloned images.
Btrfs or EXT4 filesystem extraction: We traverse the Btrfs chunk tree, device tree, and subvolume structures to locate shared folders, snapshots, and iSCSI LUN files. For EXT4 volumes, we replay the journal on the images.
Verification and delivery: Recovered data is copied to a target drive, verified against your priority file list (shared folders, VM datastores, databases), and shipped back.
Rackstation Failover And Expansion
How Do RackStation Failover and Expansion Shelf Failures Cause Data Loss?
When an expansion shelf loses its link to the head unit, the drives in it drop out of the array, and the volume can crash even though those drives are intact. We image every member and reassemble the array offline on a Linux workstation.
Enterprise RackStation models support expansion shelves, and in some configurations, high-availability clustering. When an expansion unit loses its connection, the drives in it drop out of the array.
Expansion Shelf Disconnect
When a DX517 or RX1223RP expansion unit loses its eSATA or SAS connection to a cable failure, a controller failure, or an accidental disconnect, its drives drop out of the array. If more drop out than your redundancy can cover, the volume crashes.
We pull the drives from both the head unit and the expansion shelf, image each one on its own, and reconstruct the full array from those images.
Power Supply Failures
Redundancy is a per-model spec, not a RackStation-wide one. Synology's spec sheets list a redundant power supply for the RS3621xs+ and for the RP version of the RS2423. For the plain RS2423+, they list a single 500 W supply and no redundant PSU.
FlashStation All-Flash NAS
How Is Data Recovered from a Synology FlashStation?
FS2500 and FS3410 members are SATA SSDs, so there are no head swaps. The FS6400 also takes SAS hard drives. On AES-encrypted SSDs, chip-off only gets you ciphertext. We reassemble classic RAID members offline as a standard mdadm array. RAID F1 pools use Synology-private md layouts that upstream mdadm won't assemble.
Synology FlashStation units use SSDs as the main storage, not just as cache. The FS2500 and FS3410 take 2.5" SATA SSDs. The FS6400 takes SATA or SAS SSDs and also accepts 2.5" SAS HDDs. We recover SSD members differently from the drives in an HDD-based array.
No head swaps or clean-bench work on SSD members. SSDs have no moving parts. Failures are electronic (controller death, NAND wear-out, firmware corruption) rather than mechanical.
Controller-level encryption on enterprise SSDs. Many enterprise SATA and SAS SSDs encrypt data at the controller level. Chip-off extraction (desoldering and reading NAND chips directly) does not work when the data is encrypted with a key bound to the original controller.
Board-level repair for electrically failed SATA SSDs. If a SATA SSD member has failed board components, we repair the board at the component level. We do that to get the drive back to where PC-3000 SSD can talk to the controller and pull the data through firmware commands.
TRIM complicates recovery. TRIM tells the controller to unmap deleted blocks. Once background garbage collection erases those blocks, the data is gone.
Pricing
How Much Does Enterprise Synology NAS Recovery Cost?
Enterprise NAS recovery uses two-tiered pricing: a per-member imaging fee based on each drive's condition, plus a separate array reconstruction line item. Air-filled HDD members use From $250 to $600–$900 for logical and firmware issues, and $1,200–$1,500 for mechanical head swaps. Helium-sealed enterprise drives use helium HDD pricing from $200–$5,000+; if we recover nothing, you owe $0.
Logical/Firmware per Drive
$250 to $900
This range is for HDD members with firmware corruption or file system damage. PC-3000 terminal access for firmware repair.
Mechanical HDD per Drive
$1,200 to $1,500
This tier is for air-filled HDD members that need their heads replaced. 50% deposit required. Donor parts are consumed during the transplant. Helium-sealed enterprise drives use $3,000–$4,500 head swap or $4,000–$5,000 surface damage pricing, plus helium and donor costs.
Array Reconstruction
Single line item
This line item covers SHR/SHR-2 parameter detection, LVM reconstruction, virtual assembly, and Btrfs/EXT4 extraction.
FlashStation SSD members that need board-level repair to get the controller responding again use $450–$600 SSD circuit board repair pricing. Functional SSDs that only need logical imaging use From $250 pricing.
Per-member HDD imaging follows our published hard drive tiers, from a $100 simple copy up through firmware & mechanical work. The same rates apply whether the drive came out of a four-bay DiskStation or a 12-bay RackStation.
01
Low complexity
Simple Copy
Your drive works, you just need the data moved off it
Functional drive; data transfer to new media
Rush available: +$100
$100
3-5 business days
02
Low complexity
File System Recovery
Your drive isn't recognized by your computer, but it's not making unusual sounds
File system corruption. Accessible with professional recovery software but not by the OS
Starting price; final depends on complexity
From $250
2-4 weeks
03
Medium complexity
Firmware Repair
Your drive is completely inaccessible. It may be detected but shows the wrong size or won't respond
Your drive was dropped, has visible damage, or a head crash scraped the platters
Platter scoring or contamination. Requires platter cleaning and head swap
50% deposit required. Donor parts are consumed in the repair. Most difficult recovery type.
50% deposit required
$2,000
4-8 weeks
Hardware Repair vs. Software Locks
Our "no data, no fee" policy applies to hardware recovery. We do not bill for unsuccessful physical repairs. If we replace a hard drive read/write head assembly or repair a liquid-damaged logic board to a bootable state, the hardware repair is complete and standard rates apply. If data remains inaccessible due to user-configured software locks, a forgotten passcode, or a remote wipe command, the physical repair is still billable. We cannot bypass user encryption or activation locks.
No data, no fee. Free evaluation and firm quote before any paid work. Full guarantee details. Head swap and surface damage require a 50% deposit because donor parts are consumed in the attempt.
Rush fee
+$100 rush fee to move to the front of the queue
Donor drives
Donor drives are matching drives used for parts. Typical donor cost: $50–$150 for common drives, $200–$400 for rare or high-capacity models. We source the cheapest compatible donor available.
Target drive
The destination drive we copy recovered data onto. You can supply your own, or we'll provide one. For larger capacities (8TB, 10TB, 16TB and above), target drives cost $400+ extra. All prices are plus applicable tax.
No Data = No Charge. If we cannot recover usable data from your enterprise Synology, you owe nothing.
Why Rossmann
Why Choose Rossmann Group for Enterprise NAS Recovery?
We combine PC-3000 imaging hardware, DeepSpar sector-level control, component-level board repair, and direct engineer access in a single Austin lab. No outsourcing, no franchises, no sales wall.
Image-first, offline reconstruction
Every member is cloned through a write-blocker before analysis. Array assembly happens on images, never on original drives.
PC-3000 and DeepSpar imaging
Sector-by-sector imaging with head maps, retry profiles, and firmware access for unresponsive drives.
No data, no charge
If we cannot recover usable data from your enterprise NAS, you owe $0. Free evaluation, no obligation.
Direct engineer access
You communicate directly with the person working on your array. No scripts, no sales wall, no account manager.
Transparent per-drive pricing
Each member drive is priced separately by condition. Array reconstruction is a single line item. No bundled mystery quotes.
Board-level SSD repair
For FlashStation SSD members, we do component-level board repair to make the drive readable again before we image it.
Btrfs Metadata Recovery
What Does Btrfs Metadata Recovery Involve?
A crash can damage the Btrfs chunk, device, or subvolume trees that map your files. Btrfs is copy-on-write, so older generation roots survive on disk, and we read them with read-only tools like btrfs-find-root and btrfs restore. Running btrfs check --repair can overwrite those older roots.
Btrfs uses a copy-on-write B-tree architecture with separate metadata structures for chunk allocation, device mapping, and subvolume organization. When the volume crashes, one or more of these trees may be corrupt.
Copy-on-write is an architectural property of Btrfs itself, which is why Btrfs RAID recovery and filesystem repair works read-only from images instead of through in-place repair tools.
Chunk Tree Corruption
The chunk tree maps logical addresses to physical locations. When it's damaged, Btrfs can't find data blocks even though they're still on disk.
Subvolume and Snapshot Trees
Each shared folder in DSM is a Btrfs subvolume with its own root tree. Snapshots create additional tree references. If the main subvolume tree is damaged, we traverse snapshot trees as an alternate path to the same data blocks.
Transaction Log Replay
Btrfs keeps a log tree that tracks fsync'd metadata updates until the next full transaction commit. If the volume wasn't unmounted cleanly, Btrfs replays those updates the next time it mounts.
CoW-Safe Forensic Tools
Because Btrfs is copy-on-write, it doesn't overwrite tree blocks in place. It writes a new version elsewhere and updates a pointer, so older B-tree generation roots survive on disk after a crash. We use btrfs-find-root to scan the raw block device for those surviving historical generation roots, then btrfs restore to extract file data from a nominated generation root without writing a single byte back to the device.
We don't run btrfsck --repair on your original drives. It writes to disk, and it overwrites the older generation tree roots that copy-on-write leaves behind. Professional Btrfs recovery skips in-place repair and works read-only from imaged members, never the customer drives.
DSM 7.2 LUKS Volume Encryption
How Does DSM 7.2 Volume Encryption Affect Recovery?
DSM 7.2 introduced full-volume encryption using LUKS in aes-xts-plain64 mode. Each volume's key lives in the Encryption Key Vault, and that vault is either local or on a remote server over KMIP. If the vault isn't available, you unlock the volume with the recovery key or the key vault password. If you lose both, the volume can't be accessed.
LUKS aes-xts-plain64 Volume Encryption
DSM 7.2 encrypts the entire volume with LUKS in aes-xts-plain64 mode. Encryption sits below the Btrfs or EXT4 filesystem, so the array can be imaged member by member like any other Synology.
The catch is that the imaged blocks are ciphertext until the volume is unlocked. Reconstructing the SHR geometry from the images gives you the encrypted container, not the files inside it.
Encryption Key Vault
The Encryption Key Vault holds each volume's key. It's either local or on a remote server over KMIP. If the vault is available at startup, the volume unlocks automatically. If it isn't, the volume stays locked.
When the Volume Cannot Be Accessed
Synology says there are two ways to unlock the volume when the Encryption Key Vault is unavailable: the recovery key or the key vault password. Lose both, and the volume can't be accessed.
Imaging recovers ciphertext, not plaintext.
What To Save Before A Failure
When you create an encrypted volume, DSM downloads a recovery key for it. Keep that key somewhere secure, and do the same with the key vault password. If the vault is unavailable and you have neither one, all we get from the imaged drives is ciphertext.
If your DSM 7.2 volume is encrypted and the Encryption Key Vault is unavailable, you need the recovery key or the key vault password to get your data back. DSM 7.2 LUKS encrypted volume recovery starts from that same aes-xts-plain64 container in the imaged members.
Unverified Drive Flags
Is Data Recoverable from an Unverified or Non-Compatible Synology Drive?
Yes. The unverified-drive flag DSM shows against a member is a management signal, not a storage-layer fact. The array geometry lives in the mdadm superblocks on each member, so an unverified drive pulled from a crashed array recovers through the same write-blocked imaging and offline reconstruction as a drive on the compatibility list.
Where the Array Geometry Actually Lives
Each member's data partition carries an mdadm superblock (metadata version 1.2) that records stripe size, parity rotation, member order, and the event counter. That metadata is independent of DSM's drive-certification database; the certification status of a drive has no bearing on the RAID layout written to its data partitions.
SHR and SHR-2 are mdadm plus LVM plus Btrfs or EXT4 on standard Linux. An SHR array reassembles and mounts on a standard Linux workstation without any Synology hardware, which is exactly why an unverified member is no obstacle to offline reconstruction.
What the Unverified Flag Gates
DSM marks a drive that is not on the compatibility list as unverified. The observable result is an "unverified" status against that member inside DSM.
That flag changes how DSM manages the drive. It doesn't change whether the data can be reconstructed offline, because it never touches the on-disk RAID metadata.
SMR members are a physical hazard
Consumer SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) drives are a separate, physical hazard when they're array members. Under the sustained sequential writes of a rebuild, an SMR member can stall for tens of seconds. The Linux md driver reads that stall as a dead drive and ejects the member, which can crash the volume.
If the data is irreplaceable and you don't have a verified backup, we image a degraded SHR-2 or RAID 6 array member by member through a write-blocker before anyone tries a rebuild. A rebuild's sustained reads stress aging members that share the failed drive's wear.
iSCSI LUN Container Extraction
How Is a Synology iSCSI LUN Actually Stored?
An Advanced iSCSI LUN on DSM is not a physical partition or a separate block device. It is a file inside the hidden @iSCSI directory, which Synology documents as holding LUNs and their snapshots, on the underlying Btrfs or EXT4 volume.
On an SHR or SHR-2 pool, that volume sits on LVM, which sits on the mdadm arrays. To reach your VM datastore, we have to rebuild every one of those layers in order.
Advanced LUN (File-Based)
An Advanced LUN is a container file living under the @iSCSI directory of the host Btrfs or EXT4 filesystem. It can be thick-provisioned (the full capacity is pre-allocated at creation) or thin-provisioned. When thin-provisioned it operates as a sparse file: it appears to the iSCSI initiator at its full provisioned size, but the host filesystem only allocates extents on demand as data is written, so large stretches of the LUN are never physically written.
Block-Level LUN (Legacy)
A legacy Block-level LUN isn't a file at all, so there's no container file to extract. Synology stopped offering them for new creation in DSM 6.2. We still have to reconstruct the array underneath it before the LUN is readable.
You can't just pull the LUN out as a separate disk. For an Advanced LUN there is no separate disk to pull.
The data is embedded inside the LUN container file, inside the host Btrfs or EXT4 filesystem, on top of LVM, on top of the mdadm RAID slices. Moving the drives into a fresh enclosure & choosing Migrate or Repair can instruct DSM to rewrite the system partitions & forcefully reimport the array, which frequently fails over into a fresh-install prompt that overwrites the data partitions holding that container.
If the host volume is LUKS-encrypted, you can't reach the container until the volume is unlocked.
Three-Stage Extraction
Image every member, then rebuild SHR/SHR-2 offline. Each array member is cloned write-blocked with PC-3000 or DeepSpar, then the SHR or SHR-2 mdadm array & the LVM volume group are reassembled from those images. We image member by member first & never rebuild on the original drives.
Mount the host filesystem read-only & extract the container. We mount the host Btrfs or EXT4 volume read-only, traverse the subvolume tree to the @iSCSI directory, and extract the LUN container file. For a thin-provisioned LUN we preserve its sparse layout rather than materializing the zero-filled extents.
Mount the container as a loop device & recover the VM files. We attach the extracted container as a loop block device to reach the filesystem the initiator wrote inside it, such as VMFS for VMware vSphere. From there we read out the datastore, VMDKs, or VHDX files & copy them to the target drive.
Synology High Availability Split-Brain
How Is a Synology High Availability Cluster Recovered After Split-Brain?
We recover a split-brain SHA cluster offline, and we don't repair it in place. Both nodes get imaged through a write-blocker.
Synology High Availability pairs two units into an active/passive cluster: the active node serves the volume while a synchronized passive node stands by. If the active node dies, the passive node takes over so the volume stays online. That is the whole point of SHA, uptime continuity & automatic failover.
It is not a backup. SHA gives you hardware redundancy, not point-in-time protection. A logical corruption, a ransomware write, or an accidental deletion replicates straight to the passive node, because the passive node is a live mirror of the active one, not a snapshot of an earlier state.
How We Image Both SHA Nodes
We image both nodes before anything is mounted. Every member drive from both the active & the passive node is cloned through a hardware write-blocker with PC-3000 or DeepSpar Disk Imager. We don't assemble or mount anything on the original drives, so the divergent on-disk state stays exactly as the split left it.
Never assemble member drives from both split-brain nodes into the same array. The two nodes are independent replicas, each with its own local array, not two halves of one array.
SHA delivers uptime continuity, not a backup. You still need an off-NAS backup, because both cluster nodes hold the same live data and neither one protects you from a write you didn't mean to make.
FAQ
Enterprise Synology Recovery FAQ
Which enterprise Synology models do you recover?
These are the Synology enterprise units we recover data from: DiskStation Plus series (DS920+, DS1522+, DS1821+), RackStation series (RS1221+, RS2423+, RS3621xs+), and FlashStation all-flash units (FS2500, FS3410, FS6400).
Can you recover data after an NVMe SSD cache drive fails?
It depends on the cache mode. A failed write-back (read-write) cache is the bad one. Writes that were still sitting on the NVMe drive and never reached the hard drives are gone for good, and the Btrfs filesystem left on the HDD array is incomplete and corrupted. We reconstruct the array offline from images of the HDD members.
What is the difference between SHR and SHR-2?
SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID) survives one drive failure. On two drives it mirrors them like RAID 1, and on three or more it uses single parity like RAID 5. SHR-2 adds a second parity block, which makes it the equivalent of RAID 6, and it survives two drives failing at the same time. Both use Linux mdadm under the hood, with LVM layering for mixed-capacity drive support.
My RackStation has redundant power supplies. Can a PSU failure cause data loss?
Check the spec sheet for your exact model first, because redundant supplies are a per-model option rather than a RackStation-wide feature. Where the unit does carry two, a single PSU failure should not cause data loss because the second supply carries the load.
Can you recover a FlashStation with all-SSD drives?
Yes. We use the same image-first workflow on FlashStation units. FS2500 and FS3410 members are 2.5-inch SATA SSDs. The FS6400 also takes 2.5-inch SAS HDDs. Enterprise SSDs may use controller-level encryption. Chip-off extraction doesn't work when encryption is active.
Can you recover a Synology drive flagged as unverified or non-compatible?
Yes. The unverified flag DSM shows against a member is a management signal, not a storage-layer fact. The RAID geometry lives in the mdadm superblocks on each member: stripe size, parity rotation, member order, and the event counter. Those superblocks are independent of DSM's drive-certification database, so an unverified member from a crashed array recovers through the same write-blocked imaging and offline mdadm, LVM, and Btrfs or EXT4 reconstruction as a listed drive. Consumer SMR drives are a separate, physical hazard when you run off-list drives. They can stall for tens of seconds during a rebuild and get ejected by the Linux md driver, which crashes the volume.
How much does enterprise Synology NAS recovery cost?
Pricing follows two layers: a per-drive imaging fee based on each member's condition, plus a separate array reconstruction line item. Air-filled HDD members use From $250 to $600–$900 for logical and firmware issues, and $1,200–$1,500 for mechanical head swaps. Helium-sealed RackStation members use helium HDD pricing from $200–$5,000+ for mechanical work. FlashStation SSD members that need board repair use $450–$600 circuit board repair pricing. If we recover nothing, you owe $0.
Can you recover a Synology High Availability cluster after split-brain?
Yes. After a split-brain the active and passive nodes have diverged, so we image the drives from both nodes through a write-blocker. We never merge the two nodes' member sets, because the two nodes are independent replicas each with its own local array, not two halves of one array. SHA provides uptime, not a backup.
Data Recovery Standards & Verification
Our Austin lab operates on a transparency-first model. We use industry-standard recovery tools, including PC-3000 and DeepSpar, combined with strict environmental controls to maintain drive integrity. This approach allows us to serve clients nationwide with consistent technical standards.
Serving clients nationwide via mail-in service since 2008. Our lead engineer holds PC-3000 and HEX Akademia certifications for hard drive firmware repair and mechanical recovery.
Our "No Data, No Charge" policy means we assume the risk of the recovery attempt, not the client.
LR
Technical Oversight
Louis Rossmann
Our engineers review all lab protocols to maintain technical accuracy and honest service. Since 2008, his focus has been on clear technical communication and accurate diagnostics rather than sales-driven explanations.
We believe in showing the bench rather than just describing it. Open-drive work runs on a 0.02 micron ULPA-filtered laminar clean bench, and we filmed it.
“Had a raid 0 array (windows storage pool) (failed 2tb Seagate, and a working 1tb wd blue) recovered last year, it was much cheaper than the $1500 to $3500 Canadian dollars i was quoted by a Canadian data recovery service. the price while expensive was a comparatively reasonable $900USD (about $1100 CAD at the time). they had very good communication with me about the status of my recovery and were extremely professional. the drive they sent back was Very well packaged. I would 100% have a drive recovered by them again if i ever needed to again.”
“HIGHLIGHT & CONCLUSION
******Overall I'm having a good experience with this store because they have great customer services, best third party replacement parts, justify price for those replacement parts, short estimate waiting time to fix the device, 1 year warranty, and good prediction of pricing and the device life conditions whether it can fix it or not.”
“Didn't *fix* my issue but a great experience. Shipped a drive from an old NAS whose board had failed. Rossmann Repair wanted to go straight for data extraction (~$600-900). Did some research on my own and discovered the file table was Linux based and asked if they could take a look. They said that their decision still stands and would only go straight for data recovery.”
“I've been following the YouTube tutorials since my family and I were in India on business. My son spilled Geteraid on my keyboard and my computer wouldn't come on after I opened it and cleaned it, laying it upside down for a week. To make the story short I took my computer to the shop while I'm in New York on business and did charged me $45.00 for a rush assessment.”
