Recovering ZFS Storage Pools: Advanced Data Recovery

Data recovery becomes crucial when ZFS storage pools face severe damage due to accidental formatting or destruction, rendering them unable to be mounted. There are very few programs that can reсover data from ZFS, one of them - ReclaiMe Pro software. In ReclaiMe Pro, two key capabilities facilitate ZFS data recovery:

  1. ZFS Filesystem Recovery:

    - Applicable to healthy or slightly damaged ZFS pools where pool metadata remains intact, and only filesystem metadata is affected.

    - The recovery process involves ZFS filesystem recovery.

  2. Complex Cases with Severe ZFS Pool Damage:

    - Relevant when ZFS pool metadata is significantly damaged or incorrect due to complete pool destruction, whether accidental or intentional.

    - In such instances, ZFS pool disks store data, but data extraction is possible only after detecting the ZFS pool configuration.

    - Parameters for recovery include layout type (stripe, mirror, RAIDz, RAID2z), disk count with missing disks detection, disk order, ZFS block size for RAIDz and RAID2z layouts, and pointers to main nodes (ZFS datasets).

ReclaiMe Pro's Recovery Process:

  1. Connecting Disks and Initial Scan:

    - Connect ZFS disks to a Windows PC and select them in ReclaiMe Pro.

    - An initial scan is performed, reading data from all disks and collecting ZFS metadata records for further analysis.

  2. Testing and ZFS Metadata Analysis:

    - ReclaiMe Pro analyzes all ZFS metadata records found to detect ZFS volume parameters.

  3. Recovering Damaged ZFS Configuration:

    - ReclaiMe Pro reconstructs a ZFS volume based on the analyzed metadata.

    - The software allows saving the reconstructed ZFS pool configuration to an XML file for future recovery continuation.

    - Opening data sets initiates the statistics gathering process for found data sets.

  4. Data Sets Processing:

    - ReclaiMe Pro analyzes ZFS dataset records, collecting statistics such as file and directory counts and total dataset size.

    - The Show data sets button displays all processed data sets, ordered by the generation number (TXG), indicating the set's freshness.

For Recovered Data Sets, ReclaiMe Pro Allows:

  • Saving configurations (selected or all) to a file for loading at startup for further work.
  • Recovering data from a selected data set, performing ZFS filesystem recovery, retrieving files and folders.

ReclaiMe Pro streamlines the advanced recovery of ZFS storage pools, ensuring a meticulous and effective retrieval process for complex cases of damage.