Strykerfett :
I have an SSD with my windows 7 install files on it and a 3tb internal storage drive as well. Is it possible for me to buy another 3tb internal drive and just add that to my already-present D:\ partition, or would I have to have a completely different drive letter/partition? I don't know how to use RAID or what it really is, if that matters. I was hoping I'd be able to just go into Disk Management and add the new hard drive's space to the existing partition. Thanks in advance.
The term that you are looking for is called
Raid Migration. If I understand correctly, you wish to take a 3TB single drive volume and expand it to a 6TB RAID0/JBOD volume without losing the data on the existing 3TB drive. There are several ways to do this,
The first, and most common way would be to do it through the Intel/AMD storage controller. I've never done a migration through the Intel storage controller or AMD storage controller, but it's supported on Intel RST storage controllers and Intel RSTe storage controllers. You will need to have the chipset storage controller running in RAID mode and the appropriate drivers installed before hand. Attempting to enable RAID mode without the proper drivers can cause windows to BSOD on boot up.
Once you have the chipset controller in RAID mode and Windows booted up, you must install the Intel Rapid Storage Technology / Rapid Storage Technology Enterprise (x79 only) control panel. This comes with the RST driver suite, but not the f6 drivers used when installing Windows. From the control panel, you can create a new RAID0 volume. You can keep the data from one of the disks, so make sure that you select the right one!
The second way to do it would be to create a RAID volume from within Windows itself. This is a software RAID just like the firmware based RST/RSTe RAIDs. However, a RAID created from within Windows will not be bootable, so don't install an OS on it. You can do this from within Disk Management. I do not know if Windows supports RAID migration, so the resulting volume may be completely blank.
The third way would be to get a dedicated hardware RAID controller from a reputable storage company such as LSI.
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