- Sep 25, 2018
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I currently have a 1TB harddrive and I was wondering can I buy another 1TB harddrive and then combine the two so my pc it thinks i have 1 2TB harddrive
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Combining two harddrives
- Thread starter rattle.ben98
- Start date
- May 29, 2013
- 37,393
- 3,298
- 156,790
Not without risk of losing all your data. You would have to create a striped or concatenated volume in Windows OR a RAID 0 with the motherboard. All of those things could cause your existing disk to be changed such that your existing data is unavailable.
Yes, but it requires some tools and it makes things trickier when trouble arises.
What you need (for what you ask) is called JBOD, which stands for "Just a Bunch of Disks". It allows you to configure your two-disk system to stick them together end-to-end and treat them as one disk. This is done with non-standard software that modifies how the BIOS handles your HDD units. Most mobos now come with tools to treat some or all of the attached drives as a RAID array of some sort. Most such systems ALSO include the JBOD feature as an option, even though JBOD technically is not any type of RAID. So look in the manual for your mobo for details of its RAID features and how to use them.
BEFORE proceeding, read carefully about the process for BOOTING from your HDD. Windows does NOT know anything about booting from such a non-standard drive. There is a way to make a customized version of your Windows by adding in the special device driver for using the JBOD array at a "low level" of Windows, BUT that only can be done when you first INSTALL Windows. So I suspect you would have to back up everything you have onto a separate HDD, then wipe your drives, create your JBOD array, and do a new fresh Install of Windows on it. Then you would have to re-Install ALL your application software, and finally restore copies of your old user files to the new system. Not a simple quick and easy process!
Now the warnings. First, because there is NO "standard" way to do this, once you do it you probably can access your combined drives only by using your current mobo and its JBOD system. If your mobo ever fails and you must replace it, you may not be able to access anything on any of your HDD's. Also, many software tools for diagnosing and repairing HDD problems may NOT work with your JBOD system, or may even corrupt its files.
Alternative? Buy the second drive and install it. Use Windows Disk Management to Create a New Simple Volume on it. Just use it as another place to store stuff, even though it is a separate Drive, not just a separate Folder set.
What you need (for what you ask) is called JBOD, which stands for "Just a Bunch of Disks". It allows you to configure your two-disk system to stick them together end-to-end and treat them as one disk. This is done with non-standard software that modifies how the BIOS handles your HDD units. Most mobos now come with tools to treat some or all of the attached drives as a RAID array of some sort. Most such systems ALSO include the JBOD feature as an option, even though JBOD technically is not any type of RAID. So look in the manual for your mobo for details of its RAID features and how to use them.
BEFORE proceeding, read carefully about the process for BOOTING from your HDD. Windows does NOT know anything about booting from such a non-standard drive. There is a way to make a customized version of your Windows by adding in the special device driver for using the JBOD array at a "low level" of Windows, BUT that only can be done when you first INSTALL Windows. So I suspect you would have to back up everything you have onto a separate HDD, then wipe your drives, create your JBOD array, and do a new fresh Install of Windows on it. Then you would have to re-Install ALL your application software, and finally restore copies of your old user files to the new system. Not a simple quick and easy process!
Now the warnings. First, because there is NO "standard" way to do this, once you do it you probably can access your combined drives only by using your current mobo and its JBOD system. If your mobo ever fails and you must replace it, you may not be able to access anything on any of your HDD's. Also, many software tools for diagnosing and repairing HDD problems may NOT work with your JBOD system, or may even corrupt its files.
Alternative? Buy the second drive and install it. Use Windows Disk Management to Create a New Simple Volume on it. Just use it as another place to store stuff, even though it is a separate Drive, not just a separate Folder set.
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