Combine hard drives to make a MEGA HARD DRIVE? Possible?

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  1. Posts : 235
    Windows 10 Home
    Thread Starter
       #11

    So you think I should put the hard drives into my old computer with Windows Vista or get a NAS? It just seems like a waste to spend money on a NAS when I'm not going to do anything heavy with it. I don't need the extra computing power of the NAS.


    badcrc said:
    Making one big drive is known as 'just a bunch of disks'. Many years ago, I made a FreeNas JBOD 4* 1TB as an experiment. It didn't end well. There's no fault tolerance (and no performance gain). One disk went bad, and I lost all the data. If I'd had just 4 separate HDDs in the case (or some version of RAID), it would have been recoverable to some extent.

    I didn't know much about computers back then, so if it happened today I might be able to fix it. Either way, I was not a happy bunny.
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  2. Posts : 1,099
    Win 10 pro Upgraded from 8.1
       #12

    badcrc said:
    Making one big drive is known as 'just a bunch of disks'. Many years ago, I made a FreeNas JBOD 4* 1TB as an experiment. It didn't end well. There's no fault tolerance (and no performance gain). One disk went bad, and I lost all the data. If I'd had just 4 separate HDDs in the case (or some version of RAID), it would have been recoverable to some extent.

    I didn't know much about computers back then, so if it happened today I might be able to fix it. Either way, I was not a happy bunny.
      My Computers


  3. Posts : 1,099
    Win 10 pro Upgraded from 8.1
       #13

    CerebralFreeze said:
    So you think I should put the hard drives into my old computer with Windows Vista or get a NAS? It just seems like a waste to spend money on a NAS when I'm not going to do anything heavy with it. I don't need the extra computing power of the NAS.
    no, but you do need to the redundancy of RAID 5, with hot-swappable drives. or even 6 or 10 I think if I remember right RAID 5 will recover if one drive fails and 10 is 2 havn't foolled a round with RAID since SSD and large hard drives have been available
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  4. Posts : 2,549
    Windows 11
       #14

    Clintlgm said:
    no, but you do need to the redundancy of RAID 5, with hot-swappable drives. or even 6 or 10 I think if I remember right RAID 5 will recover if one drive fails and 10 is 2 havn't foolled a round with RAID since SSD and large hard drives have been available
    Wouldn't it be easier running a Server ?
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  5. Posts : 2,324
    Win10
       #15

    CerebralFreeze said:
    So you think I should put the hard drives into my old computer with Windows Vista or get a NAS? It just seems like a waste to spend money on a NAS when I'm not going to do anything heavy with it. I don't need the extra computing power of the NAS.
    I picked up a MediaSonic ProBox and put 4 Drives in it , they have Raid and Non-raid versions depending on your needs , several other Companies have similar products , I think I looked at some by Vantec too?

    Mediasonic
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  6. Posts : 2,075
    Windows 10 Pro
       #16

    The simple answer is yes...it's called RAID. In this case software RAID. The other RAID is hardware which you have to buy a RAID card and connect your drives to that then setup the RAID....but hardware RAID is expensive.

    I'm using 4 1TB drives as a RAID 0.....I'm not really concerned with data loss do to RAID 0 failing. To use a redundancy depends on the user and what the user intends to do with the RAID....which can fire off a big debate as which way to go.

    To set up the RAID, that's done in the BIOS of your mobo.....if your mobo will allow it. It's fairly simple but can be daunting to the novice or first timer. So now when I open up explorer....instead of seeing 4 individual drives, I just see 1 drive at 4TB.
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  7. Posts : 235
    Windows 10 Home
    Thread Starter
       #17

    Plankton,

    Thanks for your help. You're saying if I put like five 4Tb hard drives together in an old computer, it's not possible unless I get a hardware RAID card?

    But if I use a NAS, RAID is included? So, the net result is that getting a NAS is cheaper and simply easier?




    Plankton said:
    The simple answer is yes...it's called RAID. In this case software RAID. The other RAID is hardware which you have to buy a RAID card and connect your drives to that then setup the RAID....but hardware RAID is expensive.
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 2,075
    Windows 10 Pro
       #18

    No no....there are 2 types of RAID.....1 is software where you set it up in your BIOS. 2 is hardware which requires special hardware that is expensive.

    Yes...if you use a NAS...the RAID is all ready setup...usually vendor specific and all you do is add your HDD's.

    No....the easiest and cheapest way is just adding the drives to your case and connecting them to your mobo (provided that the mobo has enough SATA ports) and then set the RAID up in the BIOS.

    Check out this video.......This will give you an idea how to.


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  9. Posts : 2,075
    Windows 10 Pro
       #19

    I have 4 1TB drives in my case connect to my mobo. Then I went into my BIOS for RAID set up.....this is a key combo input to access the RAID set up. In my case (situation) is ctrl+m. Then selected my RAID type, in my case I selected 0, then added my HDD's and that's it.
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 1,191
    Windows 11 Pro x64
       #20

    Just get a 4-6 TB HDD. You can't do RAID with USB external drives, only internal. The only reason to do RAID internally is for performance (RAID 0) or redundancy (RAID 1). sounds ike you need neither so just get a large HDD and put it in an external USB 3.0 enclosure.
      My Computers


 

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