tommibot

Hey. Yeah i know that is possible, but its just messy. I would prefer to have only 1 drive letter where my OS and all programs are installed. I have a NAS from which i have mapped other drives for my data. So i would like to only have 1 for my system.

500GB worth of programs that could be installed. Also beats having it just sit around doing nothing when i could utilize it in an unobtrusive way.

Hey, thanks for the reply. Yeah, i have seen this guide already. There is one section in there that actually mentions that what i want to do would not be possible (and in other guides it says the opposite) The sections states: "Another difference between these two solutions is that you can easily add more hard drives to your computer to extend a Spanned volume, something that is not supported on Striped volumes. The only caveat with these solutions is that you cannot use hard drives containing a Windows installation as the operating system can't boot from a Dynamic disk." So considering that I want to change my system drive disk to a dynamic one and then make it a spanned volume incorporating the 2nd SSD, this statement would suggest its not possible. But like I said, in other guides I have read that wndows can boot from dynamic discs and spanned volumes... So when you say that you have done this before, do you mean that you have done what i am attempting to do: have a spanned volume (consisting of the combination of 2 dynamic drive SSDs) as the system drive?

Actually, from what i have been able to gather so far, in windows 10 there is no need to wipe drive before changing to dynamic and then spanning them (and doing so doesnt wipe data either

Hello Everyone. I currently have a 2TB SSD on which my OS is installed. I have not set up any partitions and do not want to. Looking at disk management it is visible that there are some hidden partitions created by windows 10 (ie, not assigned a drive letter), bu there is only 1 drive that is visible by the system that my OS is installed on. Drive C:/. This disk is labeled as disk 0 I have another spare SSD of 500GB which i installed in the PC also. this is labeled as disk 1 I would like to combine this 500GB with the current C:/ drive to have a C:/ drive that would be 2.5GB in size. The way I would like to do this is to create a spanned volume that would incorporate the 2 physical SSDs, and be visible in windows 10 as C;/ I have been reading on the net, and unfortunately cannot find clear information, and additionally there is conflicting information out there. I have read in some places that you cannot have the operation system (in this case Windows 10) be installed on a spanned volume, however I have also seen some information that says its entirely possible with no problems, and other places where its said its possible but not recommended (although without a reason for not recommending it). I would like to get a clear answer on this, because i am running in circles now. I do not want to start from scratch either, so my approach would be the following (please let me know if this is possible, and if it is but its not a good idea please provide the reason behind it. Please keep in mind that i want to increase the capacity of my C:/ drive because i want to be able to install more programs etc. I am not looking for a solution that separates my C:/ drive and then has an additional drive (eg.D:/) that is the spanned volume The approach would be this: 1. Convert current disk 0 (the physical SSD with the system C:drive located on there together with recovery, and other non-lettered sections) into a dynamic disk 2. Convert the additional disk 1 (the empty unallocated SSD) into a dynamic disk: an option to do this together with the disk 0 conversion should be available. 3. Once the conversion to dynamic disks is done for both disks i right click on the volume on disk 0 where system (windows 10) is installed and choose to extend it. 4. I select the available space on disk 1 (in this case all of it) to add it, and then click finish or complete, and then the C:/ drive (with the OS installed on there) now incorporates the storage space from both physical drives under the single drive letter of C:/ system I really hope I can get a concrete answer on this, and perhaps an updated one, as I see most of the information avialble is for older versions of windows or 3-4 years old. Thank you in advance.

Nevermind. just googled GPT vs MBR.

Hey, thanks for the reply. Just to clarify: GPT is the new standard?

Hello everyone, I am just wondering about what the partitions on my system drive are, and have been trying to get clear answers off the net with some success but there are still some gaps in my understanding. I hope someone here can confirm or correct what i think i know, and supplement what i don't. Just to be clear, I built a desktop PC (this is not a pre-prepared computer or laptop bought as is from a store) and then bought a Windows 10 Pro OEM licence and installed it fresh on my newly built PC (although this was quite some time ago now). In any case, this is a new, built PC that has never had any other OS installed on it (ie. it was NOT installed with Windows 8.1, and then upgraded etc.). In any case, looking into disk management (please see the screenshot below. ignore the black lines as they refer to other physical disks) the disk appears to have 4 partitions (which i did not make myself, it appears as though windows did this upon installation). This brings me to my first question, because strangely enough, the last partition (486MB) which i would though would be partition 4 is "partition 5" QUESTION 1: Why is this the case? Is there an invisible partition somewhere? This is a tad weird and it got me curious. Moving on. Looking at the partitions, i think i understand the "system C:" partition and the EFI system partition (99 MB), hence the green stars next to them. My understanding is of course that the system partition is where my OS and all my programs and files etc are located, and this is the chunk of the disk i am using basically all the time. The EFI system partition, to explain it in a very simplistic way, is a partition that windows sets-up that is needed for the OS to load properly. QUESTION 2: Is my simplistic explanation making a correct assumption, or am I wrong? The next partition I am not entire sure about. The one with the yellow triangle "Recovery (OEM partition)" (450 MB). My possibly incorrect understanding is that this a partition that windows sets-up in order to allow me to boot into the windows recovery menu (Where there would be safe mode options etc etc) QUESTION 3: Is my understanding of this correct, or am I wrong? Finally the red triangle, signifying that i have absolutely no idea what this is. Disk 0 partition 5. Healthy (Primary partition) 486 MB. QUESTION 4: Can anyone explain to me what this is? Anyway, thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to read my post, and an even bigger thanks in advance to anyone who would be able to provide clear answers and explanations.

Hey there, and thank again for the reply. Yeah i was hoping just to utilize what i have bassically, so for the purposes of this discussion i just want to stick with what is possible to do with what i have currently available. The 2nd drive is currently added to the computer, so I could do as you say and just install things on there once the 2TB fills up. However, its a bit messy have 2 drives visible when they basically both serve the same purpose. Which is why i wanted to span the drive into 1 single volume that is a total sum of their sizes. I do keep the installs of the games on the NAS, but i also have the games installed on the system drive because its basically a HTPC gaming setup, so i like to have the games i play ready to go from my HTPC menu (which means they need to be installed). In any case, i just wanted to find out if backing up spanned drives as an image can be restored to non-spanned drives or spanned drives of different size etc., because i would setup automatic image backup of the system drive (spanned) and it would be pointless if in the future the system drive failed, and i the image backup i have would be useless unless i had the same spanned drive configuration to copy it to. So this is the main thing im hoping to get concrete information about.

Hi there and thanks for the reply. The spanned drive would be for the OS and programs only (which is why i want to image backup). All my data is stored on a NAS (running in raid 5) and this data is backed up (not as an image but simple file backup) from time to time to an external storage solution.

Hello, I have a particular situation where I am a little bit lost as to what is possible or not when it comes to combining drives and then backing these up. Mainly i have doubts as to compatibility of drive image back-up between drives that are single and drives that are spanned (2 or more drives combined into 1 large drive (not RAID, but spanning)). The situation looks like this: I currently have a 2TB SSD as my system drive, and I have spare 500GB SSD that i would like to use to combine into 1 spanned drive of 2,5TB. But of course i would like to do this without starting from scratch. So i thought my approach would be: 1. Create a image backup of the current 2TB SDD 2. Combine the 2TB SDD and the 500GB SSD into a single spanned drive (Have all of the data on the 2TB drive wiped in the process) 3. Restore the image backup of the 2TB SSD onto the new 2.5TB spanned drive. My main question is: - Would this be possible? Or would i face issues trying to copy an image of a non-spanned drive to a spanned drive? Additionally, if this is possible i was planning to regularly do image backups of this new 2.5GB system drive to another 3TB HDD that i have. Which brings me to my next question: - Will i be able to use the image backup of this system drive (that is a spanned system drive) to copy this image to another drive in the future (be that a single large sized SSD, or a different spanned drive)? Thank you in advance for you advice.

Thanks for the response. I will do as you suggest, unless i find actual specifications for the GPU fan. Thanks again

Hello. I have been trying to find information regarding the max airflow of the stock GPU cooling fan on the Gigabyte GTX 1080 Mini ITX 8G (part no. GV-N1080IX-8GD), but have not been able to find any information in any specifications. Does anyone know what this max airflow would be, or would know where i could find this information? Thanks in advance for your support.

thanks for advice. i have asked this in response to another response, but would like to get your take on it also: would you say the double-side tape sandwich or the electrical tape wrap would be the better option, or does it make no difference?

I was just wondering because theoretically the the double-sided tape sandwich would provide a minimal buffer between the 2 drives (= less heat transfer), but i would worry that maybe it would come apart with time. The flip side being that the electrical tape wrap would have SSD metal touching to SSD metal, but would be more secure in terms of not separating. So i wondered what you did and if you thought that far about it.