Server data recovery can be very challenging and the difficulty level changes dramatically depending on the configuration.
Here are the key factors that affect the difficulty of the recovery effort:
- Number and size of drives
- RAID Configuration
- Logical volume management
- Operating System and File System
- Virtualization
- Encryption
- De-Duplication and Compression
Most servers contain multiple drives that use some form of a RAID configuration where data is fragmented across multiple drives to allow for redundancy and/or increased performance. Depending on the manufacturer and the server’s purpose, the system may include Solid State drives or Helium drives in their server RAID configurations, which can further increase complexity especially in cases with multiple drives failures.
Another data recovery challenge is that server manufacturers can use proprietary operating systems and file systems to enhance server for specific tasks. Proprietary files systems may require development of custom software tools to assemble and extract the data, which will increase time and difficulty. It is also common for servers to host virtualized environments such as VMware and Hyper-V, and these add yet another level of complexity to the data recovery process.