Hard drive question

[JoeGuyMan]

I have a 2tb HDD and a 128gb SSD boot drive. My HDD is starting to fill up just wondering if I could get a second 2tb HDD and have the 2 act as one?

[magicbennie]

You mean RAID? I think windows had something built in that allowed for something like this... though I didn't try it, so I wouldn't know

[Butterfish]

Yes you can put it in RAID 0 to make it a 4 TB drive. Or you clean it up. :b

[coen113]

in the worst case you can JBOD it.

[brob]

It can be done a couple of different ways in Windows. The simplest and most robust would be to add folders on the new hard disk to your libraries. In addition to simplicity, this approach has the advantage that loosing one disk will not result in the loss of data on the other.

 

An alternative would be to create a spanned volume. The problem with this, as with RAID 0 and JBOD is that they are not fault tolerant and loosing one drive means the total loss of data on all drives in the volume.

[kinkywink]

you might be able to partition the 2tb one into 2 1tb then use raid 10? needs a minimum of 3 drives so i dont know if this would work

[Hans Christian | Teri]

Why would you want them to act as one? Have 2 separate drives and use that to organise your files. Sounds like you've got a lot of mess if you've filled up a 2tb drive.

[JoeGuyMan]

It can be done a couple of different ways in Windows. The simplest and most robust would be to add folders on the new hard disk to your libraries. In addition to simplicity, this approach has the advantage that loosing one disk will not result in the loss of data on the other.

 

An alternative would be to create a spanned volume. The problem with this, as with RAID 0 and JBOD is that they are not fault tolerant and loosing one drive means the total loss of data on all drives in the volume.

Does using RAID 0 increase the fault chance or is it the same chance as any drive failing?

[JoeGuyMan]

Why would you want them to act as one? Have 2 separate drives and use that to organise your files. Sounds like you've got a lot of mess if you've filled up a 2tb drive.

Because its all pretty much games and using 2 drives could be annoying for Uplay Origin and steam

[Butterfish]

Does using RAID 0 increase the fault chance or is it the same chance as any drive failing?

It does not increase the fault chance. BUT if one of the two drives fail, you will lose all data, since the information is spread across both HDD's when in RAID 0.

[Hans Christian | Teri]

Because its all pretty much games and using 2 drives could be annoying for Uplay Origin and steam

 

Holy... how many games can you play at once?!

[brob]

Does using RAID 0 increase the fault chance or is it the same chance as any drive failing?

 

The chance of a fault is increased because a fault on either drive means the loss of data on both. In other words, the chance of each drive in the array failing does not change, but the chance of the array failing increases.

 

In RAID 0 parts of a file may actually be written on each drive. In fact that is likely for files of any size.

[JoeGuyMan]

Holy... how many games can you play at once?!

Well I have my entire library of games on there

[Hans Christian | Teri]

Well I have my entire library of games on there

 

Is that really necessary with the internet speeds we get these days?

[kinkywink]

Yes you can put it in RAID 0 to make it a 4 TB drive. Or you clean it up. :b

pretty sure raid 0 will half the total storage?

raid 0 with (2)128gb ssds means you only have 128gb of ssd storage? it just gives you increased performance.

 

i dont think theres a point to doing anything to the guys hdd's he should leave them be

[brob]

pretty sure raid 0 will half the total storage?

raid 0 with (2)128gb ssds means you only have 128gb of ssd storage? it just gives you increased performance.

 

i dont think theres a point to doing anything to the guys hdd's he should leave them be

 

RAID 0 splits writes across the drives. RAID 1 writes the same data to both drives.

[Butterfish]

pretty sure raid 0 will half the total storage?

raid 0 with (2)128gb ssds means you only have 128gb of ssd storage? it just gives you increased performance.

 

i dont think theres a point to doing anything to the guys hdd's he should leave them be

No. That is incorrect. Watch Linus' TechQuickie about RAID.

[Str_Mape]

pretty sure raid 0 will half the total storage?

raid 0 with (2)128gb ssds means you only have 128gb of ssd storage? it just gives you increased performance.

 

i dont think theres a point to doing anything to the guys hdd's he should leave them be

Raid 0 doubles theoretical speed and size from 1-2 drives, raid 1 has roughly the same speed, the same size but with increased fault tolerance.

[kinkywink]

RAID 0 splits writes across the drives. RAID 1 writes the same data to both drives.

 

Raid 0 doubles theoretical speed and size from 1-2 drives, raid 1 has roughly the same speed, the same size but with increased fault tolerance.

didnt say anything about RAID 1

 

No. That is incorrect. Watch Linus' TechQuickie about RAID.

okay well your statement was still wrong then with you saying you can get 4tb..

EDIT - sorry my bad, i didnt realise he already had a 2tb hdd, i thought he originally had a single 1 tb hdd

 

with RAID 0 you get twice the read and write performance and you keep the physical capacity, but each drive you add makes the failure chance increase..

2 drives = 50% more of a chance of failing

[Butterfish]

with RAID 0 you get twice the read and write performance and you keep the physical capacity, but each drive you add makes the failure chance increase..

That is correct, but your original statement was wrong.

[ERSCreeper]

Well I have my entire library of games on there

I know the feel 216 games on steam and its at 1Tb Haven't even installed all of my origin games yet, only BF4

[kinkywink]

That is correct, but your original statement was wrong.

yeah i admit it was wrong.. probably would have been a good idea to read op properly too