According to one embodiment, a backup is searched for data to be restored from a striped volume. The backup comprises multiple disks divided into stripes. The stripes that contain data to be restored from the striped volume are identified as desired stripes, and a current disk is searched for the desired stripes. The content of a first subset of desired stripes is read from the current disk. A second subset of desired stripes that are not on the current disk are recorded on an unread list. The remaining content is read from the remaining disks according to the unread list.