Synology DiskStation NAS devices are widely used by banks and financial institutions for secure data storage and redundancy. However, power loss during a firmware upgrade can cause severe RAID metadata corruption, partition failure, or even complete NAS inaccessibility.
This case study details how we successfully recovered business-critical financial data from a Synology DiskStation NAS with 6 WD 16TB SATA drives, after a power failure disrupted a firmware update, leaving the NAS completely unresponsive.
As Ireland’s oldest and most experienced data recovery company, we applied RAID reconstruction, firmware repair, and forensic data recovery techniques to restore the lost banking data.
The Challenge: Power Loss During Synology NAS Firmware Upgrade
A local bank contacted us after their Synology DiskStation NAS failed to boot following a power outage. The reported issues included:
- The NAS no longer responding or displaying errors on boot.
- DSM (DiskStation Manager) failing to detect the RAID volume.
- Drives appearing healthy in individual tests but unreadable as a RAID array.
- Business-critical banking transactions, customer records, and financial reports were at risk.
Since financial data loss could result in regulatory non-compliance and financial penalties, an immediate and professional recovery solution was required.
Diagnosis & Evaluation
When the Synology DiskStation NAS arrived at our cleanroom facility, we performed a full RAID and firmware-level diagnostic. Our findings:
- Firmware corruption – The interrupted firmware update left the NAS in an unbootable state, preventing RAID volume access.
- RAID metadata inconsistencies – The RAID configuration was partially lost, causing disk recognition failures.
- No physical damage to the hard drives – All six WD 16TB SATA disks were mechanically functional, meaning data recovery was highly probable.
Since Synology NAS systems use Btrfs or EXT4 file systems, we needed to manually rebuild the RAID structure to extract the missing banking data.
The Recovery Process
1. Cloning & Imaging All 6 RAID Drives
To prevent further corruption, we:
- Removed all six drives from the NAS and cloned them sector-by-sector.
- Used write-blocking tools to preserve the original data structure.
2. Manually Rebuilding the RAID 6 Array
Since the firmware update corrupted the RAID metadata, we:
- Analyzed the RAID parity and stripe configuration manually.
- Rebuilt the RAID 6 array using forensic data recovery tools.
- Bypassed the failed NAS firmware, reconstructing the data at the file system level.
3. Extracting & Verifying Banking Data
Once the RAID was successfully reconstructed, we:
- Recovered financial transaction records, account statements, and audit logs.
- Verified data integrity to ensure files were complete and uncorrupted.
- Transferred the recovered data to a secure external encrypted storage device for the bank.
The Results: 100% Data Recovery Success
Thanks to our RAID reconstruction and firmware repair techniques, we successfully recovered 100% of the bank’s critical data, including:
✅ Banking transaction records and account balances
✅ Customer financial documents and compliance reports
✅ Secure backups of encrypted banking databases
The bank was able to restore operations without any data loss, preventing regulatory violations and financial losses.
Why Choose Us?
With 25 years of experience and tens of thousands of successful recoveries, we are the leading Synology NAS data recovery specialists in Ireland and the UK. Our expertise includes:
✔ Synology NAS RAID 5 & RAID 6 recovery
✔ Firmware corruption repair & RAID metadata reconstruction
✔ Btrfs & EXT4 file system data recovery
✔ Secure & confidential data retrieval for banks and financial institutions
If your Synology NAS has failed due to a power outage, firmware update issue, or RAID corruption, stop further attempts and contact us immediately for expert data recovery.