make 4 hd's look like one

[isi.catch]

how do i make four separate hard drives look like one directory (c: for example)

 

[bwana]

RAID? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks

 

[The_Assimilator]

You can use RAID (RAID-0 to be precise). But AFAIK, this will only work if all 4 drives are the same size.

If the disks are not all the same size you can use JBOD.

 

[Highflyer_GP]

If you do decide to run them in a RAID array, I wouldn't recommend using it as your primary drive.

 

[werner]

if you got xp pro or win2k or vista, then any drive that is NOT your boot drive can be converted to a dynamic disk.

you can add multiple dynamic disks to form one large volume (like, d: ) or whatever.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308424

 

[Farquaon]

Go to disk management. Convert one drive to dynamic, and add the other three drives as spanned.

 

[Fudzy]

After you've done that, is it easy on which hard-drive something is kept? Like if you wanted to replace one of the hard-drives would you be able to tell what data is kept on it so you can move it off?

 

[killadoob]

try and make sure its raid 0 with mirroring, you will loose 2 drives though but your data will alot more secure

 

[Farquaon]

After you've done that, is it easy on which hard-drive something is kept? Like if you wanted to replace one of the hard-drives would you be able to tell what data is kept on it so you can move it off?

NO!

If you lose a drive or replace a drive that would render all the others useless. So there is no redundancy on spanning. You also wont know what is on which drive, but you can take a guess but you wont be able to be accurate.

 

[werner]

if you want to know what is where, then there is another way.

in disk management, remove the drive letters from the drive, then select the "mount in empty ntfs folder" options.
make a folder on another drive, and then "mount" your empty drive in that folder.

you can then make e.g. c:\mp3 as one drive, c:\movies as another drive, c:\downloads as another drive etc etc. that way you will know what is where.