I have two drives I previously used, but not any more.  I need to get the data off of them.  I had them in some RAID config, but I can’t recall which.

How can I access the data on those drives? 

Thanks!

RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is used as an umbrella term for computer data storage schemes that can divide and replicate data among multiple hard disk drives. Before you can retrieve any data, you need to know which level was used and how it was implemented. RAID can involve significant computation when reading and writing information. With traditional RAID hardware, a separate controller does this computation.  In other cases the operating system or simpler and less expensive controllers require the processor to do the computing. RAID levels 0, 1, and 5 are the most commonly found.

A little background…

RAID 0 (striped disks) distributes data across several disks in a way that gives improved speed and no lost capacity, but all data on all disks will be lost if any one disk fails. Although such an array has no actual redundancy, it is customary to call it RAID 0.

RAID 1 (mirrored settings/disks) duplicates data across every disk in the array, providing full redundancy. Two (or more) disks each store exactly the same data, at the same time, and at all times. Data is not lost as long as one disk survives. Total capacity of the array equals the capacity of the smallest disk in the array. At any given instant, the contents of each disk in the array are identical to that of every other disk in the array.

RAID 5 (striped disks with parity) combines three or more disks in a way that protects data against loss of any one disk; the storage capacity of the array is reduced by one disk.

RAID 6 (striped disks with dual parity) (less common) can recover from the loss of two disks.

RAID 10 (or 1+0) uses both striping and mirroring. “01” or “0+1” is sometimes distinguished from “10” or “1+0”: a striped set of mirrored subsets and a mirrored set of striped subsets are both valid, but distinct, configurations.

And there is both hardware and software RAID. 

To access the RAID set, you’d first have to get the controller to recognize the array.  Meaning, reconfigure the multiple drives.

Now, you mention two drives, which can be an important clue and you can likely eliminate Raid 5 + array sets.

The sad news, is that you must re-create the array as it was… or the 1’s and 0’s are forever scrambled…