Mergeing 3 hard drives.

highrev15k · 03-03-2007, 08:52 AM

Is there a program that will allow me to make my 3 internal hard drives appear as a single drive in windows?
I know the post below me sounds the same but he is talking about partitions. I want something that will combine my C G H drives into just a single C drive with out going RAID.

PC eye · 03-03-2007, 09:04 AM

If you were runniing two sata drives you could create a sata array. But if you are running three ide drives you are going to see two of those in Raid with the third seen as another logical drive. In Linux you would hda1, hdb1, hdc1 and so forth. I would like to see a program for combining drives but that won't be happening anytime soon. The two 250gb ide drives along with the 500gb sata here would make a nice 1terabyte drive.

highrev15k · 03-03-2007, 09:10 AM

Well all three are sata 2 of them 250 GB and one 500 gb. I was under the impression that i cant do RAID because it will set all my HD to the lowest capacity one and I need the space. Also what is a sata array?

elitehacker · 03-03-2007, 12:28 PM

A RAID only makes two physical drives work in tandem.

Eklipze3k · 03-03-2007, 12:58 PM

The problem you're going to initally face highrev is that you will have to format all 3 drives to make this work, so I hope you have a lot of blank DVD's or another PC you can back your stuff up to temporarily

The way I have mine set up (3x120GB SATA-I = 1x360GB Striped Array) involved setting each drive to a "Simple" drive in Windows Disk Management thingy, and then selecting the drives I wanted to merge. You're then given the option of either having Striped (meaning data is stored in parts on all 3 drives, meaning faster access but real troubles if one drive buys the farm!) or mirrored (where you can only use 2 drives, and one acts as a mirror for the other - which is good for business servers but not so good for home usage) but this means 2x120GB drives would only give you 120GB of storage in mirrored mode.

I think striped is what you are looking for, and so far - touch wood - I've not had any major problems. You just have to make sure that, if you ever take your PC apart, that you plug the drives back in exactly where they came from or Windows may have a small fit...

PC eye · 03-03-2007, 01:15 PM

Now you are getting into virtual not literal arrays there. One site that ilustrates this in the greater degree can be seen at http://docsrv.caldera.com:507/en/OSA...ml#vdmC.raid53

Here's a 2002 article on a "four way, four drive benchmarking bonanza"? http://techreport.com/reviews/2002q4...d/index.x?pg=1

**Cromewell** · 03-03-2007, 07:22 PM

Quote:

A RAID only makes two physical drives work in tandem

RAID can use any number of drives not just 2.

You could RAID the 2 250GB drives if you wanted them to appear as 1 drive but you'd have to RAID0 it unless you wanted to lose 250GB. But to get the 500GB drive in you're right, it would be cut down so only 250GB was useable. RAIDing all 3 drives in a RAID5 would leave you with 500GB (250GB lost straight off the bat for the 500GB drive and another 250GB lost for parity).

PabloTeK · 03-03-2007, 11:49 PM

I believe RAID1 is mirroring Cromewell? RAID0 is striping and that makes 2 drives appear as 1, RAID1 puts 2 identical drives into perpetual back-up.

**Cromewell** · 03-04-2007, 12:12 AM

Yes it is, I knew what I was thinking just not what I was typing. I'm going to fix that. Thanks.

PC eye · 03-04-2007, 02:45 AM

If all three drives here were sata instead of the twin 250gb ide drives I would lose the 250gb off of the top on the 500gb model just installed lately in that sense. Another thing to weigh is the controller or controller card used and what that supports. Since multi OSing a system requires different logical drives I'll have to add another three 500gb satas for Vienna when that comes out, Mandriva, and relieve the burden on the XP Pro drive being shared for storage at the moment. That would total upto...

500+500+500+500+250+250gb = 2 1/2 terabytes!

03-03-2007, 08:52 AM	#1 (permalink)
highrev15k Silver Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 134	Mergeing 3 hard drives. Is there a program that will allow me to make my 3 internal hard drives appear as a single drive in windows? I know the post below me sounds the same but he is talking about partitions. I want something that will combine my C G H drives into just a single C drive with out going RAID. __________________ Antec 900 Case Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 mobo Intel e6400 OC'ed to 3.01 GHZ Thermalright Ultra 90 CPU Cooler 1.25 TB hard drive space 2X 1gb DDR2 800MHZ RAM 550 watt Xcilo Greatpower EVGA 8800GTS X-FI Sound card with front panel Last edited by highrev15k; 03-03-2007 at 08:55 AM.

03-03-2007, 09:10 AM	#3 (permalink)
highrev15k Silver Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 134	Well all three are sata 2 of them 250 GB and one 500 gb. I was under the impression that i cant do RAID because it will set all my HD to the lowest capacity one and I need the space. Also what is a sata array? __________________ Antec 900 Case Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 mobo Intel e6400 OC'ed to 3.01 GHZ Thermalright Ultra 90 CPU Cooler 1.25 TB hard drive space 2X 1gb DDR2 800MHZ RAM 550 watt Xcilo Greatpower EVGA 8800GTS X-FI Sound card with front panel

03-03-2007, 12:58 PM	#5 (permalink)
Eklipze3k Bronze Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Scotland Age: 29 Posts: 30	The problem you're going to initally face highrev is that you will have to format all 3 drives to make this work, so I hope you have a lot of blank DVD's or another PC you can back your stuff up to temporarily The way I have mine set up (3x120GB SATA-I = 1x360GB Striped Array) involved setting each drive to a "Simple" drive in Windows Disk Management thingy, and then selecting the drives I wanted to merge. You're then given the option of either having Striped (meaning data is stored in parts on all 3 drives, meaning faster access but real troubles if one drive buys the farm!) or mirrored (where you can only use 2 drives, and one acts as a mirror for the other - which is good for business servers but not so good for home usage) but this means 2x120GB drives would only give you 120GB of storage in mirrored mode. I think striped is what you are looking for, and so far - touch wood - I've not had any major problems. You just have to make sure that, if you ever take your PC apart, that you plug the drives back in exactly where they came from or Windows may have a small fit... __________________ Athlon 64 3200+ DFI LanParty NF4 Ultra-D 2GB Corsair DDR-400 XFX GeForce 7800 GT 512Mb Acer 20.1" Widescreen @ 1400x1050 asetek Waterchill (CPU) Triple 120mm Radiator HDD's: 200GB PATA WD-Caviar + 2x200GB SATA-I WD-Caviar + 3x160GB SATA Maxtor = 1TB Lian-Li PC-V2000 Case Windows Vista Ultimate Last edited by Eklipze3k; 03-03-2007 at 12:59 PM. Reason: Typos

03-03-2007, 11:49 PM	#8 (permalink)
PabloTeK Diamond Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: /dev/null Age: 18 Posts: 2,982	I believe RAID1 is mirroring Cromewell? RAID0 is striping and that makes 2 drives appear as 1, RAID1 puts 2 identical drives into perpetual back-up. __________________ Click here to save Spa Francorchamps! Join CTMDAGM! [Campaign to make Danny and Geoff Moderators]

03-04-2007, 12:12 AM	#9 (permalink)
Cromewell Moderator Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Canada Age: 26 Posts: 11,802	Yes it is, I knew what I was thinking just not what I was typing. I'm going to fix that. Thanks. __________________ You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til ya understand who's in command here. www.userfriendly.org

03-03-2007, 09:04 AM	#2 (permalink)
PC eye banned Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 21,091	If you were runniing two sata drives you could create a sata array. But if you are running three ide drives you are going to see two of those in Raid with the third seen as another logical drive. In Linux you would hda1, hdb1, hdc1 and so forth. I would like to see a program for combining drives but that won't be happening anytime soon. The two 250gb ide drives along with the 500gb sata here would make a nice 1terabyte drive.

03-03-2007, 12:28 PM	#4 (permalink)
elitehacker Diamond Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Sydney, Australia Age: 20 Posts: 2,413	A RAID only makes two physical drives work in tandem.

03-03-2007, 01:15 PM	#6 (permalink)
PC eye banned Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 21,091	Now you are getting into virtual not literal arrays there. One site that ilustrates this in the greater degree can be seen at http://docsrv.caldera.com:507/en/OSA...ml#vdmC.raid53 Here's a 2002 article on a "four way, four drive benchmarking bonanza"? http://techreport.com/reviews/2002q4...d/index.x?pg=1

03-04-2007, 02:45 AM	#10 (permalink)
PC eye banned Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 21,091	If all three drives here were sata instead of the twin 250gb ide drives I would lose the 250gb off of the top on the 500gb model just installed lately in that sense. Another thing to weigh is the controller or controller card used and what that supports. Since multi OSing a system requires different logical drives I'll have to add another three 500gb satas for Vienna when that comes out, Mandriva, and relieve the burden on the XP Pro drive being shared for storage at the moment. That would total upto... 500+500+500+500+250+250gb = 2 1/2 terabytes!

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