Synology NAS died?
Pull the drives and read your data on a Mac
Dead motherboard or power supply, DSM won't boot after an update, or the storage pool shows "Crashed"—most of the time, your files are still on the drives. Follow the steps below to connect the drives to your Mac. Everything stays read-only, with no Windows PC and no commands needed.
SHR / RAID / LVM / BtrfsRead-only throughoutFree scan and previewLast updated
Do these first—and avoid these
Label your drives
After shutting down, label each drive by bay number so they go back into the original NAS in the right order.
Don't click "Repair" on the NAS
Rebuilding a degraded array rewrites every member drive; if something else fails midway, data that was readable may become unreadable.
Don't click "Initialize"
When you connect the drives to your Mac, macOS will say "The disk you attached was not readable by this computer." Click "Ignore"—never initialize or erase them.
Strange noises? Power off first
If a drive clicks, won't spin up, or keeps disconnecting, it has a physical fault. Power it off and take it to a professional data recovery service.
Read Synology drives on a Mac with NAS Rescue
You'll need a SATA-to-USB adapter or drive dock for each drive (a multi-bay dock works too), plus a target disk with enough free space.
- 1
Connect the drives
Shut down the NAS, remove all drives from the same storage pool by bay, and connect them to your Mac. When you see "The disk you attached was not readable by this computer," click "Ignore."
- 2
Scan the disks
Open NAS Rescue, select the drives, and click "Scan Disks." It rebuilds SHR / RAID and LVM read-only, and can even assemble a degraded array with one drive missing.
- 3
Choose the data volume
The data volume holding your shared folders is marked "Recommended" and has the same name as in DSM, such as "Volume 1."
- 4
Browse & preview
Browse shared folders and Btrfs snapshots just as you would in DSM, and preview photos, videos, and documents for free to confirm your files are there.
- 5
Recover files
After upgrading to Pro, copy the files to the target disk with modification dates preserved, each one verified with SHA-256.
What can be read
| Readable | Notes | |
|---|---|---|
| Synology SHR / SHR-2 | ✓ | Including degraded arrays with missing drives |
| Synology RAID 0/1/5/6/10 | ✓ | |
| Synology Btrfs snapshots | ✓ | Browse @GMT snapshots by time |
| Synology encrypted volumes (LUKS) | ✓ | Password or .rkey recovery key |
| Synology encrypted shared folders (eCryptfs) | Not yet supported | |
| QNAP QuTS hero, TrueNAS (ZFS) | ✓ | Read-only pool import |
| Unraid arrays | ✓ | Each data disk read separately (XFS / Btrfs) |
| Physical drive failure | — | Contact a professional data recovery service |
For full support details, see NAS Rescue. Not sure? Scan with the free version first—the results will tell you.
Q&A
Can I read just one drive from a Synology NAS?
For a two-drive RAID 1 or SHR mirror, one good drive is enough. RAID 5 / SHR can be missing up to one drive, and RAID 6 / SHR-2 up to two; RAID 0 needs every drive. Connect as many drives from the same storage pool as you can.
Can I read a Synology drive by plugging it into a Windows PC?
Generally no. Synology stores data on Linux RAID (mdadm) or SHR plus LVM, with Btrfs or ext4 on top, and Windows doesn't understand these formats; it may even offer to initialize the disk, which you must not accept. Synology's own instructions use a computer running Ubuntu; on a Mac, NAS Rescue rebuilds the volume read-only and lets you browse it directly.
Does Synology recovery require Windows or Ubuntu?
No. Synology's official method has you type commands on a PC booted from an Ubuntu USB stick; NAS Rescue does it on a Mac with a four-step wizard and a built-in engine—no Linux knowledge needed.
Could this damage the drives? Will they still work back in the NAS?
No. NAS Rescue is read-only throughout: it doesn't rebuild the array, repair the file system, or write partition tables, so the drives go back into the original NAS unaffected.
Where do recovered files go?
To another disk you choose—never back onto the NAS drives. The target disk needs more free space than the data you're recovering.
Do I need NAS Rescue for a single Synology Basic drive?
Basic volumes usually sit on RAID / LVM too, so they also need NAS Rescue to rebuild them before reading. If a USB backup drive attached to the NAS is Ext4, you can open it directly with CrossDriver Ext4.
If the drives are still there, so is a chance for your files
Download NAS Rescue and check for free whether your files are still there.
Download for Mac — Free Scan & Preview