ReadyNAS 104 lost X-RAID volume after degraded disk replacement

Hi, an update on my data recovery journey.  After a few weeks of trying different things, I finally have recovered my data using ReclaiMe.

For your and others information, here is the sequence of events:

- Clone/copy disk #1 using hardware

    - Using a 2-bay disk duplicator, attempted to clone disk 1 to a new 3TB disk.  The duplicator would not read disk #1.

- Clone/copy disk 1 using SW

    - Connected disk #1 to Win PC via sata

    - Attempted to clone or copy disk using a number of applications.  None worked.

    - They all returned errors, all related to I/O issues

    - I swapped sata cables and ports, nothing worked

    - I'm quite concerned disk #1 is truly dead....although Win disk management shows it is healthy

- Checked to see if RAID array can be detected

    - Used a few applications to check if they recognize the RAID array

    - They all did but non-would complete the process.   They all seem to stall at some point.

- Decided to use ReclaiMe File Recovery to detect RAID array and find files

    - Connected all 4 disks to WIn 10 PC via sata

    -  ReclaiMe Ui is a bit old school but was actually pretty intuitive

    - It began finding files and folder structures

    - It stated that when files and folders are found, I can save/recover them while in process

    - I decided to activate ReclaiMe File Recovery Ultimate and see if files can actually be recovered

    - After multiple days of continuos detection and file recovery, I have recovered the data that matters to me...so it worked.

I think the post mortem validates that while disk #3 was resyncing, disk #1 failed big time.  I'm lucky there was enough data integrity and physical life left in the failed drives for ReclaiMe to recover the ~3TB of data.

Going foward, I'll be trying a different RAID approach and of course backing up the data.  Thanks for the insight and guidance.