The order it goes in
How your case runs. Seven stages, and two of them wait until you say go.
Every NAS that reaches us goes through the same seven stages, in the same order, and you are asked to decide at two of them: whether to send it, by post or through a drop-off point, and whether to accept the figure. Nothing chargeable happens before the second, and nothing is ever rebuilt, repaired or reinstalled on the original drives at any stage. What follows is each stage as it actually runs, what the drives are doing while they wait, and how long each usually takes. A single drive is £300 + VAT and a set £500 + VAT upwards after the free look, fixed in writing; 5–10 days at the bench for a set.
Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
0800 6890668
The order it goes in, end to end.
Every band, in prose →The form
You tell us the unit, the drives by bay, what the dashboard or the lights say, and what matters most. Five minutes on the quote page, or the fuller booking sheet if you would rather do it once. It is read by an engineer, not a script.
Posting details, by email
Back come the posting address, the nearest of ten drop-off points to where you are, packing notes for your kind of unit, and a booking sheet to print. The laboratory address is not published anywhere; it comes by email in reply to the form. Put the booking sheet inside the parcel and write your name on the outside; that is how the parcel is matched to your enquiry when it arrives, and your case number is issued that day. Post it tracked, or hand it in at the drop-off point.
Arrival
Logged, photographed, every drive numbered and its make, model and serial recorded against its bay, and the whole matched to your enquiry the day the parcel lands, when it is given its case number and you are emailed to say it has arrived. Nothing is powered in a NAS.
The free look Free
Read-only assessment on our own equipment. The unit is tested on its own; each drive is read on the bench, the ones that answer at full speed and the weak or failed ones in clean air; the metadata on each is read for the layout it describes and the event counts that say which member dropped out when. The fault is named — which drives, which layer, which layout, and what was done to it — and how much can honestly be read back is settled. Allow about 48 hours for a small set.
One figure, in writing
What we found, what we expect to recover, and one price, together. Accept it and work begins. Decline and the drives come home at our expense with nothing owed.
The work on the bench
Every drive imaged once, the weak ones head by head with the bad areas last, the SSD cache with them. The set reassembled in software from the images: mdadm and LVM under SHR, X-RAID, TRAID and QTS pools; a ZFS pool imported read-only; Drobo's zones reconstructed. The file system repaired on the virtual volume, encrypted volumes unlocked there with your key, LUNs and VM disks extracted and opened in turn. Never on the originals.
The file list, then the files, home
What was recovered is checked by opening it, not by counting it, and listed for you before any bill exists. Approve the list and it is invoiced; then the files travel home on fresh media bought in for your job, tracked, with the original drives, and the postage paid here. Your case stays open until you have opened the files on a machine of your own.
How long each of them takes.
| Stage | Usually | What stretches it |
|---|---|---|
| The form to the posting details | The same working day | A form sent late on a Friday |
| Posting | Next working day, tracked | A parcel sent second class |
| Dropping off | Logged at the point on the spot; to the bench within a working day as a rule | A parcel handed in late on a Friday |
| The free look | About 48 hours from arrival | A large set, or one with several weak drives |
| Your decision | As long as you need | Nothing; the drives wait, unpowered |
| Bench work, one drive | 3–4 days at the bench | A head swap, or a My Cloud Home index to rebuild |
| Bench work, a set | 5–10 days at the bench | A second weak drive, an interrupted reshape, a rebuild that ran before it arrived |
| Files home | Next working day after approval | Very large volumes copying to the new media |
What belongs in the box
- Every drive from the set, labelled by bay before it came out, each in an anti-static bag in its own padding. Include any SSD cache, labelled by slot.
- The unit and its power supply where they hold an encryption key, a proprietary layout, a cache or a hardware RAID controller. When in doubt, send them.
- The booking sheet, printed and filled in, with the drives listed by bay, or sent on ahead from the quote page.
- The key, or a note that it will follow: the volume recovery key, the folder password, the exported key file, the dataset passphrase. Encryption halts the bench at the point you halted.
What stays at home: the computers that used the NAS; and mobile phones, which are not handled here at all.
The questions that come up first.
Do I have to accept the figure?
No. Decline it and the drives come home at our expense with nothing owed. The free look is free whichever way you decide.
Can I have the drives back if nothing is recoverable?
Yes, at our expense, or we destroy them securely if you would rather. Either way, nothing is owed on most jobs.
Can I ask for priority?
Yes. Priority handling puts the set at the front of the bench and is quoted separately, only when you ask.
How do I know the files are right?
You see the file list before any bill exists, and your case stays open until you have opened the files on your own machine and told us they are what you needed.
What happens to the original drives?
They go back to you with the recovered data, or are securely destroyed at your request. We do not recommend rebuilding a set from recovered drives, and we say so on the file list.
All of it begins with one form.
Five minutes on the quote page, the posting details by return, and the first look is free.