Dell EqualLogic Multiple Disk Failure: What to do

As you manage your RAID array, something can go wrong and your disks start failing one after the other. This multiple disk failure of your Dell EqualLogic RAID can appear as a Faulted Beyond Recovery message to you. In a nutshell, this means that you must:

• First, make a backup of your data, to avoid further loss;
• Second, replace failed disks;
• Third, contact a data recovery expert to restore the data you couldn’t save.

The aggravation of a multiple disk failure is that even if you have a hot spare disk, at some point you’ll not have not spare enough to replace the failed disks. 

A single disk failure on the Dell EqualLogic RAID array you can quickly fix. The spare disk will take over, save your data, and you just replace the failed disk later. Although it should be as soon as possible, to avoid the multiple disk failure issue.

Even with multiple disk failures, to have your entire array fail would take a natural disaster, or you ignore all the messages and alerts.

What to do if you have multiple disk failures on your Dell EqualLogic

If you’re getting multiple disk drive alerts, you should contact your support provider for assistance on the next steps. Although the failure can be caused by something really simple, it can also have more complicated reasons, since it’s not common for several disks to fail at once. Even though you must solve the issue as soon as possible because multiple disk failures might put data in jeopardy. 

When multiple disk drive failures occur in the same RAID set, the member is set offline. Before it happens, make a backup of your data. If you can, then replace the failed disks.

If the member goes offline because of multiple RAID set disk failures, any volumes and snapshots with data on the member will be offline and you may lose the data.

Here, your only way out is to contact a data recovery service.

SalvageData experts have years of experience recovering RAID data from Dell EqualLogic multiple disk failures. And you can have your disks evaluated for free. Then you can know what can be saved.

Contact us 24/7 for an emergency RAID data recovery.