# Merge multiple hard drives into one partition? Is it possible?



## bamhm182 (Sep 8, 2007)

Like the title says, I want to know if it's possible to merge multiple physical hard drives into one? So that I can, for example have 4 500 GB hard drives and than have 2 partitions, one with like 200 GB and than 1 with like 1.8 TB?


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## PC eye (Sep 8, 2007)

The best thing that will happen when syncing only two drives together is an arrray where one drive clones the other to appear as one logical drive. Perhaps you have heard of RAID for ide drives usually with an added in controller card or a sata array. But you first start off with clean drives for something like that. 

On one drive alone you may find a program for merging partitions but multiple drives? That would seem disasterous for any data on them. Server cases see drives insync due to the different type of Windows used to run them there. Windows Server 2005? Red Hat Linux? This is something planned out prior to actual use of the drives seeing data already on them.


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## bamhm182 (Sep 8, 2007)

Well see, what I was thinking, is sometime after I get a job, I'd really like to buy a lot of Hard Drive space, but Terrabytes are pretty expensive, around $350 I think, while 2 500 GBs which would equal 1 TB is about $200 on newegg. So I was wanting to buy 4 new 500 GB hard drives, than do what I was saying, 200ish GB for Operating Systems and 1.8ish TB for all my crap. Since they're new, they wouldn't have data on them, therefor, it wouldn't matter if I had to format them and what not.

Also, I have 6 SATA plugs on my mobo, just wanted to point that out, if there needs to be something special about the motherboard in order to merge them, my motherboard's in my sig, could you tell me if my motherboard has it?


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## PC eye (Sep 8, 2007)

The board for the new build here also sees 6 sata ports with one being used for the new 18x sata dvd burner to go with the two 500gb sata HDs and 1 ide HD already in. I considered creating a larger array with two 750gb drives when the $200 tab on those finally comes down to have adequate drive space simply since a single 500gb here fills fast. But this also has alot to do with live video captures and editing as well as some media files taking space fast. 

For the average user a pair of 500s is usually more then they ever need. With two pairs of sata drives you should be able to create two separate arrays. The drawback? If one drive fails in an array or you simply remove it all data is lost! The key word no matter how much drive space you have is "frequent backups". 

Vista sees the first actual smart move by MS there with the new backup feature where you can assign the partition or drive even for the new type of system backup files the new version creates. The second sata here fortunately also saw that when backing files up since two drives were wiped for a clean install of Vista and XP on the new build. Less one ide drive to see a new fasrer dvd burner on a sata port to replace the older 16x ide type burner in this case. Many boards only see 4 ports not 6.


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