Page 1 of 1

Recovering linux RAID 1 partitions + files on 1 TB drive requires more than 3.6 TB

Posted: 03 Nov 2026, 05:29
by wazoo42
I have a number of old drives (WDC Black 1 TB sata HDD) that had between 2 and 5 RAID 1 partitions on them (EXT4 or XFS). Each RAID 1 setup had either 2 or 3 drives mirrored and I tried using testdisk on Rocky Linux 10 to save the files. Running the Quick Search works well and lots of recognizable files and folders turn up. When I go to save a partition that is about 600 GB I run out of space on the drive to which I transfer the data. I tried a single 2 TB drive, and when that ran out of space I used 4 of the 1 TB drives in RAID 0 to create a 3.6 TB partition. Once again, trying to copy these files from the 600 GB partition completely filled up the 3.6 TB RAID 0 array after 24-30 hours. How do I go about recovering these partitions and files without resorting to exceedingly large drives?

Re: Recovering linux RAID 1 partitions + files on 1 TB drive requires more than 3.6 TB

Posted: 03 Nov 2026, 08:37
by recuperation
Please post your log file.
Quick search is searching for partitions not for files and folders.
Please explain what you mean when you say "a lot of files and folders turn up".
Did you use TestDisk or PhotoRec?
Try to be specific so that a third person can understand what you did exactly.
Running the Quick Search works well
I don't know what "works well" means.