Question:
I have three hard drives that I want the computer to recognize as one. Is this possible?
2009-01-18 16:53:56 UTC
I have two 500GB hard drives and one 320GB hard drive and I want the computer to recognize as one 1.3TB hard drive. Can this be done? What steps do I need to take to achieve this? Thanks
Eight answers:
Edward Elric
2009-01-18 17:20:30 UTC
it can be done with software raid, you just need to set up the volume management to use logical volumes withing "dynamic" disks (as opposed to "basic" disks with standard partitions, used by default when windows is installed). So in windows you have to convert your "basic" disks (or create) "dynamic" disks, and then create logical volumes that span them.



Give this a read it will explain basic logical volume management in windows, and show you how to convert / create dynamic disks in the disk management MMC and the different types of logical volumes that can be created.



What's the difference between Basic and Dynamic Disks in Windows XP/2000/2003

http://www.petri.co.il/difference_between_basic_and_dynamic_disks_in_windows_xp_2000_2003.htm



more detailed



How To Use Disk Management to Configure Dynamic Disks in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308424



The section "How to Create a Simple Volume or a Spanned Volume" is probably what you want.





cheers
A Simple Thinker ☼
2009-01-18 16:57:47 UTC
If you take your computer apart, there should be a second slot for a second one. This is Dell though, so a different computer may have 3. I don't believe you can seemlessly transition between both.
sosguy
2009-01-18 16:58:44 UTC
In a word, NO! However, you can set up RAID if your motherboard allows it and have a copy of what is on your primary drive on the other drives.
late_sleeper35
2009-01-18 17:00:00 UTC
It wont see it as a single TB drive, unless you have a TB drive. Even if you ran it is a raid array it still won't see it as a single TB drive.
Desert Ronin
2009-01-18 17:02:26 UTC
I believe it is possible.

what you need to do is read up on RAID configurations , see which one suits you. this is a breif on all RAID Configs but if you want more info i dropped you the wiki link.



Standard levels

Main article: Standard RAID levels

A number of standard schemes have evolved which are referred to as levels. There were five RAID levels originally conceived, but many more variations have evolved, notably several nested levels and many non-standard levels (mostly proprietary).



Following is a brief summary of the most commonly used RAID levels.[3]



Level Description Minimum # of disks Space Efficiency Image

RAID 0 "Striped set without parity" or "Striping". Provides improved performance and additional storage but no fault tolerance. Any disk failure destroys the array, which becomes more likely with more disks in the array. A single disk failure destroys the entire array because when data is written to a RAID 0 drive, the data is broken into fragments. The number of fragments is dictated by the number of disks in the array. The fragments are written to their respective disks simultaneously on the same sector. This allows smaller sections of the entire chunk of data to be read off the drive in parallel, giving this type of arrangement huge bandwidth. RAID 0 does not implement error checking so any error is unrecoverable. More disks in the array means higher bandwidth, but greater risk of data loss. 2 93%

RAID 1 'Mirrored set without parity' or 'Mirroring'. Provides fault tolerance from disk errors and failure of all but one of the drives. Increased read performance occurs when using a multi-threaded operating system that supports split seeks, very small performance reduction when writing. Array continues to operate so long as at least one drive is functioning. Using RAID 1 with a separate controller for each disk is sometimes called duplexing. 2 47 %

RAID 2 Hamming code parity. Disks are synchronised and striped in very small stripes, often in single bytes/words. Hamming codes error correction is calculated across corresponding bits on disks, and is stored on multiple parity disks. 3

RAID 3 Striped set with dedicated parity or bit interleaved parity or byte level parity. This mechanism provides an improved performance and fault tolerance similar to RAID 5, but with a dedicated parity disk rather than rotated parity stripes. The single parity disk is a bottle-neck for writing since every write requires updating the parity data. One minor benefit is the dedicated parity disk allows the parity drive to fail and operation will continue without parity or performance penalty. 3 62%

RAID 4 Block level parity. Identical to RAID 3, but does block-level striping instead of byte-level striping. In this setup, files can be distributed between multiple disks. Each disk operates independently which allows I/O requests to be performed in parallel, though data transfer speeds can suffer due to the type of parity. The error detection is achieved through dedicated parity and is stored in a separate, single disk unit. 3 62%

RAID 5 Striped set with distributed parity or interleave parity. Distributed parity requires all drives but one to be present to operate; drive failure requires replacement, but the array is not destroyed by a single drive failure. Upon drive failure, any subsequent reads can be calculated from the distributed parity such that the drive failure is masked from the end user. The array will have data loss in the event of a second drive failure and is vulnerable until the data that was on the failed drive is rebuilt onto a replacement drive. 3 62%

RAID 6 Striped set with dual distributed parity. Provides fault tolerance from two drive failures; array continues to operate with up to two failed drives. This makes larger RAID groups more practical, especially for high availability systems. This becomes increasingly important because large-capacity drives lengthen the time needed to recover from the failure of a single drive. Single parity RAID levels are vulnerable to data loss until the failed drive is rebuilt: the larger the drive, the longer the rebuild will take. Dual parity gives time to rebuild the array without the data being at risk if one drive, but no more, fails before the rebuild is complete. RAID 6 is sometimes referred to as Advanced Data Guarding (ADG).
2009-01-18 17:07:16 UTC
You can do that with RAID, but I would not recommend that with a mix of sizes.
peavey_S-'88
2009-01-18 16:59:44 UTC
i am sure it is possible, but it may be better to keep them separate. I wish I could give you some help though.
Love Doctor
2009-01-18 16:57:04 UTC
it's called raid...google it and see if you can do that with yours.



http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks



take off space


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
Loading...