Merging 2 drives into one

[Outsider]

For the longest time I had 1x250GB drive in my media server PC, and just recently I bought another (different make and model). I do have a PCI Raid card that the drives are connected to, but I'm not using the raid capabilities of the card.

Is there any way to make the 2 drives (combine them) to be seen by the system as one 500GB partition? Or am I stuck with 2 separate partitions of 250GB each?

Any advice would be helpfull.

[willy]

Yes, it is possible. Assuming your RAID controller can handle >137GB HDs, you can create an RAID-0 array with 2 x 250GB (500GB). Identical HDs would be ideal but different HDs are possible.

However, you will need another >250GB HD to transfer the existing content to the your new 500GB array.

You could do this ..... Buy another identical 250GB as your newer one and create a 500GB RAID-0 array with 2 identical HDs. Transfer all the existing data onto the array and sell the old one.

[Canadianpsycho]

Why not just have 2 partitions? With RAID you'll lose 500 instead of 250 if a drive fails.

[Outsider]

Yes, Phsycho, it's currently 2 partitions.
Willy, getting another 250GB drive temporarly is not a problem. I can always pick something up at Staples of FShop, use it for the evening, and return it a few days later.
Loosing everything is also a problem. I'm setting up an ever growing media library of DVDs and music that I currently own, and the problem of having 2 partitions (and possibly more partitions in the future) is that I'll have movies spanned over several directories. Certanly not as slick as being in one folder, but I'll manage since I really would hate to re-rip all my DVDs to the computer if something happens to one drive.. Currrently I'm using up about 300 GB, (movies and music)

I'll have to pay special attention to getting a large case with lots of cooling for the drives, to keep the chances of loosing a drive minimal.

[hardcore]

running raid-0 is like having sex with crackwhores with no condom. you lose one drive in the raid-0 array and you lose all your data.

i'm running raid-1 right now meaning i lose half of my storage capacity but i'm rest assured that if either drive fails, i still have a copy of the data. and the chances of both drives failing at the same time is low.

drives are relatively cheap, i'd just get two 500GB drives when they come out and raid-1 them... or get a bunch of 250GBs and run RAID 5, assuming your tower fits them all.

or maybe it's finally time for commercial NAS/SAN storage devices to become available for consumer use.

[goofball]

why not just make the second one a dynamic disk and have it mount into an empty NTFS folder on the first drive?

[willy]

Ah, another idea ... I remember there is a JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) options available to some RAID controllers. It can 'span' several HDs together to form a large logical disc. Not as risky as RAID-0 ...

[hardcore]

Ah, another idea ... I remember there is a JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) options available to some RAID controllers. It can 'span' several HDs together to form a large logical disc. Not as risky as RAID-0 ...

not sure what exactly you're referring to but anytime data spans over several disks without an active spare or mirror image you're talking many single points of failure.

with dynamic disks it's even worse cuz windows can't recognize the individual disks without the entire set of array...

[willy]

not sure what exactly you're referring to but anytime data spans over several disks without an active spare or mirror image you're talking many single points of failure.

with dynamic disks it's even worse cuz windows can't recognize the individual disks without the entire set of array...
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/levels/jbod-c.html

[Bskll]

or you can even do raid 0+1, best of both worlds, but require 4 disks.

[Outsider]

Well, it seems that any way you slice it, the cost of having one large continous partition comes at either the cost of loss of ALL the data if one drive fails (in Raid-0) or at the cost of money since I'd need 4 drives (in Raid 0+1)

For now at least, I think I'll stick with individual partitions.

Since we're talking about Raid arrays, what happens when a drive fails in a Raid 1 (mirrored) array? I know nothing happens since the data is backed up, but how do I know when one drive actually fails, and I need to replace it?

[ShadowVlican]

raid 0 is bad, as other's have said

raid 1 is a waste of space imo

no point going raid0+1, might as well go raid 5, which is better

as for myself, i just leave my drives by themselves, as separate drives... sure it looks like **** in windows, but there's no space wasted, and if you got good airflow and don't abuse ur drives, they will work for quite some time (i got 4 drives in my system, all separate, none fail, no bad sectors, no space wasted from raid, no redundacy though :lol: , not that i'm scared...)