RAID 4 should be acquired as individual disks. True or False?

RAID 4 should be acquired as individual disks. True or False?

• A. True
• B. False
• C. Depends on the controller
• D. Always as a single array

Answer: (B)

RAID 4 uses block-level striping across multiple disks with a dedicated parity disk. The data layout depends on the relationship between the data stripes on the disks and the parity information on that parity disk. If you acquire the disks individually, you break that stripe/parity mapping, making it hard or impossible to reconstruct files that span multiple disks. Forensic work aims to preserve the storage structure, so you image or otherwise preserve the entire RAID set in a way that allows reconstruction, rather than treating each disk as an independent unit. Some controllers may present a single logical drive, but the underlying data organization still relies on the array’s parity relationships, so the best practice is to preserve the array’s structure during acquisition.

RAID 4 uses block-level striping across multiple disks with a dedicated parity disk. The data layout depends on the relationship between the data stripes on the disks and the parity information on that parity disk. If you acquire the disks individually, you break that stripe/parity mapping, making it hard or impossible to reconstruct files that span multiple disks. Forensic work aims to preserve the storage structure, so you image or otherwise preserve the entire RAID set in a way that allows reconstruction, rather than treating each disk as an independent unit. Some controllers may present a single logical drive, but the underlying data organization still relies on the array’s parity relationships, so the best practice is to preserve the array’s structure during acquisition.