Combining Drives

SpellowHouse · 2 Dec 2024 at 11:34

Since NVMe's were first introduced, I used multiple drives in PC's. Drive C with my OS, D and E with data and games.

This started because SSD's were quite expensive and drives D and E were mechanical drives, and continued because it was convenient. But, these days, it's not really economical to buy small capacity SSD's for the OS, so I was considering combining drives C and D in to a single 2TB NVMe. Drive D: is already a 2TB 980 Pro, so no need to buy anything. The question (finally!!) is, what is the best way to combine the two drives?

I am about to re-case the PC, so it's a good time to do it. I was thinking that I could start by wiping drive D: then cloning C: to D: using Samsung Magician. Then create a new partition on the drive, name it D:, and copy everything back to D: from my backup. BUT, that is pretty slow because it will take a while to restore that much data.

Drive C: currently has two recovery partitions on it, and I am not sure which one is relevant and not sure whether Samsung Magician will get it right anyway.

How would you achieve this?

Snapshot · 2 Dec 2024 at 13:03

What you've proposed is really the only way to do it but don't bother wiping the current D: as Magician will take care of it. You might find that Magician will fill the drive with one big C: partition and you'll need to shrink it to get space to recreate D:. That's what Acronis does but I don't know if Magician does the same.

Simon42 · 3 Dec 2024 at 20:57

I would use either:

A dedicated disk partitioning tool (I use Paragon HD Manager, but there are plenty of choices) as they can move, copy and resize partitions as required and good ones are faster as they do inteliigent section copying so only copy sectors with data which saves a lot of time. These tools work well provided the partitions aren't overly full so you've got free space to work with.

Alternatively you could use backup software which supports partition backups. I use Macrium Reflect but there others such as Acronis already mentioned and these can also do some partition operations, although not usually to the extent of dedicated partitioning management tools. Such tools also usually perform intelligent sector copying for better performance and can be the only choice if existing partitions are quire full.

I've not tried Samsung Magician in years as it used to be basic for partition work like most utilities from drive suppliers were back then so cannot comment on that.

Whatever approach do ensure you're well backed up!

SpellowHouse · 5 Dec 2024 at 15:30

Well, that worked perfectly. Thanks all. :cry:

D: which used to be the drive is now partitioned in to C: and D: and D: is restoring as I type this.

Magician did well. It actually cloned all the necessary partitions and missed out the out of date recovery partition. Good. It spread C: over the entire drive, so it was necessary to shrink the partition to allow me to create D: Once it is all copied back I will create some free space for the drive to do it's stuff at peak performance.

Part 2 of this is that I have a drive E: which is an old SATA drive which I will now replace with an M.2, but that's for another thread....!