Synology data recovery in London

A Synology is a network attached storage (NAS) box running Synology’s own DSM operating system. It sits on a home or office network and serves files to anyone with a web browser or the mobile apps. These units are well built and tend to run for a long time without complaint, which is exactly why a failure catches people without a second copy. Kensington Computer Repairs recovers data from Synology units of every size and RAID type.

Do not rebuild, repair or re-initialise the volume. Leave the disks in their bays, shut the unit down and get in touch. Have the model number and the number of drives to hand.

First aid for a failed Synology

A Synology that has just failed is usually in a recoverable state. What makes a job harder tends to come afterwards, from a well-meant attempt to fix it. A few rules:

• Do not try to repair a hard drive yourself, or swap drives between bays
• Do not let the system rebuild the array while the fault is still unexplained
• Do not download recovery software and run it against the NAS
• Do note the model number, how many drives are fitted and what happened last

A faulty array left running generally gets worse, not better. Switching it off costs you nothing.

Why Synology units lose data

DiskStation is the desktop range and RackStation the rack-mounted one. Either can be set up as RAID 0, 1, 5, 6 or 10, and both fail for the same handful of reasons:

• Hard drive failure, in one disk or several
• A corrupt file system
• Errors in the firmware or operating system
• Faulty configuration
• Defective RAID or NAS controllers
• Physical damage to the unit
• Power problems
• Overheating hard drives
• User error, including an accidental reformat
• Server hardware or mechanical faults
• Problem software
• Environmental damage

RAID types and volumes we recover

Inside a Synology, the RAID is handled by software and the volume is layered on top of it. Recovery means working out the disk order and the RAID layout before the file system can be read at all, which is slow, fiddly work. Our in-depth NAS data recovery guide explains the file systems involved. We support:

• JBOD: disks joined end to end as one volume, with no redundancy
• RAID 1: two disks holding identical copies
• RAID 5: data and parity spread over three or more disks, surviving one failure
• RAID 6: as RAID 5 with a second set of parity, surviving two failures
• RAID 10: mirrored pairs striped together
• Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR)
• Synology LUNs, dynamic and non-dynamic

Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR)

SHR is the usual choice on home and small office DiskStations. It lets you mix drives of different sizes by slicing each disk into sections, building several small RAID arrays from those sections and joining them into one volume. That is clever, and it makes recovery more involved than plain RAID 5, because every layer has to be reconstructed correctly before any files appear.

Dynamic and non-dynamic LUNs

A LUN is a block of storage the NAS hands to a server or virtual machine over iSCSI, which then formats it with a file system of its own. We retrieve data from all Synology LUNs, both dynamic ones that grow as data is added and non-dynamic ones of a fixed size. The same goes for other RAID arrays and SAN or DAS storage.

What a firm quote includes

1. Free diagnosisWe examine the unit and its drives. This takes between 4 and 24 hours.
2. File listWe email you a list of the files we have found, so you can see exactly what is recoverable before you commit to the cost.
3. Return mediaOnce you say go ahead, the recovered data is copied to media large enough to hold all of it.
4. DeliveryThe price includes return by our own staff or by next-working-day courier.

Guide prices

These are guide prices, and the firm quote you receive is the price you pay. See the full data recovery price list.

Getting your Synology to us

Drop it in at 68A North End Road, West Kensington, or ask for free collection from your home or office in central and south London. Send the whole unit with the drives in place if you can. If a drive has failed physically, it is opened only in our ISO Class 5 (Class 100) clean room, and everything on it stays confidential.

Synology models we recover data from

We work on current and discontinued models alike. If yours is not listed here, it is still covered.

DiskStation J series

• DiskStation DS416slim
• DiskStation DS218j
• DiskStation DS418j
• DiskStation DS216se
• DiskStation DS216j
• DiskStation DS115j
• DataStation EDS14

Value series

• DiskStation DS118
• DiskStation DS216
• DiskStation DS216play
• DiskStation DS218
• DiskStation DS218play
• DiskStation DS418
• DiskStation DS418play
• DiskStation DS1517
• DiskStation DS1817
• RackStation RS217
• RackStation RS816

Plus series

• DiskStation DS718+
• RS818+ / RS818RP+
• DiskStation DS918+
• Synology DiskStation DS1817+
• DiskStation DS1517+
• Synology DiskStation DS2415+
• DiskStation DS1618+
• RS2418+ / RS2418RP+
• DiskStation DS218+
• RackStation RS2818RP+

FS and XS series

• FlashStation FS3017
• RackStation RS4017xs+
• FlashStation FS2017
• RackStation RS3618xs
• FlashStation FS1018
• RackStation RS18017xs+
• RackStation RS3617RPxs
• RackStation RS3617xs+

Bay sizes and expansion units

• Expansion units
• 1-bay DiskStation
• 2-bay NAS
• 4-bay NAS
• 5-bay NAS
• 6-bay DiskStation
• 8-bay DiskStation
• 10-bay NAS
• 12-bay NAS
• 16-bay RackStation
• 24-bay FlashStation